Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

Plasterers, Sheffield (Direction)

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that the city of Sheffield still has in its employ 17 plasterers who are mainly engaged in maintenance work on their housing estates; and whether he will review the present staff engaged on grounds of urgency and redirect the surplus to the bomb-damaged districts of London.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): A review has already taken place. Of 19 plasterers employed, seven were over 60 years of age and five were regarded as immobile. The remaining seven were directed to bomb damage repair work in London; four appealed successfully against direction on medical grounds and three were transferred.

Mr. Walkden: Will the Minister again review the respective groups, either mobile or immobile; and does he recognise that sealing up the cracks and crevices and windows in London is so urgent, that five plasterers or five glaziers are as valuable now, as 50 other types of building workers?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, but I cannot break the rule of not transferring men over 60 years of age nor disregard the right of the man to appeal. That goes far deeper than repairs in London.

Mr. Walkden: Can my right hon. Friend use his persuasive powers with these people in Sheffield to encourage more of these men to come to London?

Mr. Bevin: I will send my hon. Friend down there.

Unemployment Statistics

Sir Wavell Wakefield: asked the Minister of Labour if in future he will include in the official figures of unemployment those employees who, although they have no work to do and are therefore unemployed, yet at the request of his Ministry are retained and paid by their employers, in order that the true and not the present artificial figure of unemployed persons may be given.

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir. There is a limited number of men no longer needed on the work which they have been doing and who are being retained temporarily in employment pending their call up to the Services. It would not be appropriate to include these men in the statistics of unemployment.

Sir W. Wakefield: Why publish unemployment figures at all, if they are inaccurate and misleading and do not represent the true unemployment position? What is the point of publishing unemployment figures which bear no relation to the actual unemployment?

Mr. Bevin: The figures do bear relation to actual unemployment. Because I retain these men in the works pending their call-up, that does not mean that they are unemployed. They are rendering service. I try to arrange that men are not put out of work, when I know that probably, in a month, they will be going into the Services.

Control of Engagement Order

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Labour whether, under the Control of Engagement Order proposed in Cmd. 6568, he will allow freedom for employers and employees to negotiate engagements directly or through any agency they choose, subject only, in the case of controlled engagements, to approval by a National Service officer; and whether he will inform the House as soon as he has reached any further decision of substance concerning the effect of the proposed Order.

Mr. Bevin: As in the case of the existing Control of Engagement Order, engagements of the classes of persons covered by the proposed Order will in general require to be effected through the


employment exchanges or through approved agencies. I am unable at present to say what agencies may be approved. I could not accept the proposal contained in the first part of the Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor) as that would render the proposed Order largely ineffective. If at any stage I have further information on the proposed Order which could usefully be imparted to the House I shall certainly be glad to do so.

Sir J. Mellor: As the House presumably will have no opportunity of approving or disapproving of the Order, will the right hon. Gentleman keep us very fully informed, particularly with regard to the agencies that he proposes to approve?

Mr. Bevin: Certainly. I always answer the hon. baronet, and give him the fullest possible information.

Disabled Persons (Employment) Act

Mr. Manningham-Buller: asked the Minister of Labour when the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act, 1944, will be brought into force.

Mr. Bevin: Certain Sections of the Act have been in operation since 15th August last. The remaining sections, including in particular those relating to the obligation on employers to employ a quota of registered disabled persons will be brought into operation as soon as circumstances make this desirable and practicable.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEMOBILISATON (FIRE BRIGADE SERVICE)

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the Minister of Labour whether, for the purpose of the demobilisation scheme, he will consider a period of voluntary service in the fire brigade during the aerial bombardment as part of a soldier's active service.

Mr. Bevin: Soldiers who were temporarily released for the purpose of returning to the Fire Service and were subsequently recalled to the Army will have that period in the Fire Service whilst on the Reserve counted as war service for the purpose of release from the Armed Forces after the defeat of Germany.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND GRANTS

Mr. Robertson: asked the Minister of Pensions if he has considered the case of a Streatham naval pensioner, of whom he has been notified, who had to be moved to a London hospital on 3rd October and whose pension was stopped on 5th October for a period of seven weeks, during which time he was without resources; and what has been the result of his inquiries.

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): My inquiries show that, although the pensioner was admitted to a London hospital on 3rd October, no definite notification was received in my Department until the 20th October. On 4th November certain forms were sent to the man for completion and within two days of their return on 14th November, payment of treatment allowances was authorised with effect from the beginning of October. I regret that there should have been some delay in the issue of these forms. I cannot, however, accept the statements that the pensioner was without resources or that his pension was stopped on 5th October. He was in receipt of sick pay from his employers up to the 18th November and could have obtained payment of his pension until 14th November, when he returned the book. I should add that, owing to inaccurate information being furnished by the pensioner on the forms referred to, it has been necessary temporarily to discontinue payment of treatment allowances and that recovery will fall to be made of the amount which was overpaid to him in this respect.

Mr. Robertson: Is it not a fact that this pensioner's job came to an end, and, while it is true that he got notice money, why should my right hon. Friend take advantage of that? Why this amazing speed in stopping the pension, and leaving a sick man without means?

Sir W. Womersley: My hon. Friend has been misinformed. There was no stoppage of pension. The system is that where a pensioner goes into a hospital—not one of my own hospitals where he would have been dealt with at once—when we receive the notification, we substitute for the pension a treatment allowance on a far more generous scale. When the man furnishes inaccurate information, we are bound to deal with it.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA

Jodhpur Railway (Trade Union)

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware of the dissatisfaction existing among the employees of the Jodhpur Railway Company, in India, because, under Government instructions, the executive committee of the men's trade union were suspended and a committee nominated by the Government put in control, the whole of the funds and effects of the union being taken over by this control; and will he hold an inquiry with a view to restoring trade union rights to the employees of the Jodhpur Railway Company.

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): The Jodhpur Railway is owned and operated by the Government of His Highness the Maharaja of Jodhpur and the hon. Member would appear to be referring to some action affecting its employees which has been taken by the State authorities. The Government of India has no jurisdiction in the matter, and I am not in a position to take any action in regard to it.

Mr. Dobbie: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider some further information that I can give him on the subject?

Mr. Amery: Yes, but the matter is entirely in the hands of the State Department.

Congress Party Leaders (Release)

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has considered a letter from the Keighley Rotary Club suggesting that the publication of the names of Sir Tej Sapru's Conciliation Board Committee provides a suitable opportunity for the release of the Congress Party leaders; and what reply he has given.

Mr. Amery: I have noted and acknowledged the Keighley Rotary Club's suggestion. As regards the release of the Congress Party leaders I have nothing to add to the reply which I made on 5th October to the question of the hon. Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen).

Mr. Thomas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this negative attitude will get us nowhere?

India Office (Staff)

Sir W. Wakefield: asked the Secretary of State for India how many people there are employed at the India Office in a secretarial, administrative or clerical capacity; and, of this number, how many have been to India.

Mr. Amery: The answer to the first part of the question is 569; and to the second part 94.

Sir W. Wakefield: Will my right hon. Friend consider giving as soon as possible opportunities of experience in India to more people in the India Office, and at the same time will he bring to the India Office more people with experience of administration in India, so that there will be a better knowledge in the India Office of practical affairs in India?

Mr. Amery: I will certainly keep that point of view in mind, but, of course, in war conditions it may not be easy to give effect to it.

British Personnel, Indian Army (Home Leave)

Mr. Francis Beattie: asked the Secretary of State for India if he can make an announcement about the application to the Indian Army of the 28 days' leave scheme recently announced by the Prime Minister.

Mr. Amery: I wish to take this opportunity of clearing up certain misconceptions which exist in regard to leave home for British personnel of the Indian Army. The War Office have for some time been operating a "home posting" scheme based on length of service overseas. As I have explained to the House this scheme cannot be applied as such to the Indian Army, but, in lieu of it, an Indian Army leave scheme for 61 days' leave at home has been introduced which is also primarily based on length of service overseas.
On the announcement of the new 28-day leave scheme, which as my hon. Friend is aware is not based primarily on length of service, I felt that it was essential that it should also be applied to the British personnel of the Indian Army in addition to the existing leave scheme in order that those who would not be eligible by length of service overseas should nevertheless have the advantage of a scheme intended to benefit those who had borne the burden of campaigns fought often in the most adverse climatic conditions. I am glad to


say that arrangements have been made for the application of the scheme to British personnel of the Indian Army. Both regular personnel and emergency commissioned officers will be covered and the scheme will be applied in the same manner, both as regards numbers and conditions of eligibility, as it is being applied to the British Service. The Royal Indian Navy will also share in it. As in the British scheme the allotment of passages will be at the discretion of the Commanders-in-Chief concerned and will be dependent on operational necessities.

Mr. Beattie: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his statement will give great satisfaction to the personnel serving in the Indian Army?

Mr. J. J. Lawson: As this scheme applies to the men who have been serving for long years in India and other parts, can he tell us when they are likely to come home on leave in view of the fact that it is dependent on the Command?

Mr. Amery: I ought to make it clear that there are two leave systems. There is the longer home-leave system which has for some time now been applied to the British personnel with the Indian Army as well as to the British personnel of our Forces here; and there is a short-leave system which is also being applied to British personnel of the Indian Army. Both are coming into force.

Sir J. Mellor: How did the widespread misunderstanding about this arise?

Mr. Amery: I think it arose because it was not possible, without first making special arrangements, to say at once that it applied to those belonging to the Indian Army. As soon as the special arrangements could be worked out I was in a position to make this announcement.

Mr. Bellenger: Many of these officers and other ranks, with long service in the British Indian Army, have wives and families out there; does this scheme make any provision for families being brought to this country?

Mr. Amery: I think that as far as possible and as far as the great difficulties of shipping allow, that point is being looked into.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the

scheme he has announced will not interfere in any way with the normal scheme of repatriation for long service?

Mr. Amery: I trust that it will not in any way interfere with that.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is still widespread doubt about the ratio of troops who are allowed to come home on leave under any scheme, that in some cases it is one per 100 and in other cases one per 200 or 250 per month? Will the right hon. Gentleman's statement mean a change in that arrangement?

Mr. Amery: The purpose of the arrangement which I have announced is to enable British personnel of the Indian Army to enjoy facilities equal to those enjoyed by the British Army. The amount of facilities that can be granted either to the British Army or to the British personnel of the Indian Army necessarily depends on operational and shipping conditions, over which, naturally, I have no control.

Industrialists (Visit to Britain)

Sir George Schuster: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give any information as to the proposed visit to this counry of a representative group of Indian industrialists announced some months ago; whether the plan for this visit has been cancelled; and, if not, when it is likely to take place.

Mr. Amery: The visit has not been cancelled. The party are most anxious to come here, and are likely to leave India at the end of February.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHANNEL ISLANDS

Supplies

Mr. Lipson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is now able to say when food and medical supplies will be sent to the Channel Islands; and in what quantities.

Major Mills: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any statement to make about supplying food and medical necessities to the Channel Islanders; and what the present position in these Islands is in these respects.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I would refer my hon. Friends to the statement which I made in the House on Tuesday. I should like, if I may, however, to take this opportunity of acknowledging the part played by the War Organization of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John in generously making available the supplies which are being sent to the Channel Islands and the ship which is taking them, and also of acknowledging all that has been done by the International Red Cross in connection with these negotiations.

Mr. Lipson: May I ask if the ship has already sailed and when it is likely to arrive? Can my right hon. Friend also answer the part of the Question which relates to the amount of food supplies which are being sent?

Mr. Morrison: We hope that the ship will sail in a few days, but I do not know the exact time, or how long the journey will take. The total food supplies to be sent, which will not necessarily all be on the first ship, comprise 300,000 parcels of the type sent by the Red Cross to prisoners of war, and 10,000 parcels for persons on invalid diet. There are also two tons of medical supplies designed to meet acute shortages, and five tons of soap.

Mr. Lipson: Will the 25-word messages, which have been suspended since D-Day, be resumed, because they are much appreciated?

Mr. Morrison: There is a Question on the Order Paper about that.

Mails

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any statement to make on the collection and delivery of mails in the Channel Islands.

Mr. H. Morrison: Arrangements have been made by the International Red Cross for delivery in the Channel Islands of mail from prisoners of war in Germany, and of Red Cross messages of the usual kind from the United Kingdom; and for the transmission of mail from the Islands to prisoners of war in Germany. Proposals have been made by the British Red Cross for the transmission of Red Cross messages from the islands to this country. I have no further information on this head at present, but I am making inquiries.

Oral Answers to Questions — DIRECTED MINE WORKERS (PRISON SENTENCES)

Major Peto: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many boys directed to the mines have been sent to prison for refusing to take up that work; and whether in any of these cases hard labour has been imposed by the magistrates.

Mr. H. Morrison: Of the youths—nearly 16,000—picked by the ballot and directed to training for underground coal mining employment, 143 have been sentenced to imprisonment for failing to comply or for leaving their employment without the permission of the National Service Officer. In a number of these cases a sentence of imprisonment with hard labour was imposed.

Major Peto: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that it is a monstrous injustice to send youths of 18 through the rest of their lives with a stigma of prison on them when they wanted to fight for their country?

Mr. Morrison: It is no use my hon. and gallant Friend getting cross with me. It is not a matter for me at all.

Mr. Tinker: Does not this Question convey to the House the hardship of the mines, and the necessity for something being done to improve the conditions?

Mr. Morrison: I want to keep out of a Debate on merits; that is not for my Department.

Several hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members can either have fewer Questions and more supplementaries, or fewer supplementaries and more Questions.

Major Peto: I am not satisfied with my right hon. Friend's reply, and I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE CONSTABLE'S WIDOW, KEIGHLEY (PENSION)

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that the late Police Constable Plant, of the Keighley force, met his death as the result of an


unduly severe drill which he was required to undergo, he will grant a special pension to his widow.

Mr. H. Morrison: Under the provisions of the Police Pensions Act, 1921, the question whether a special pension could be granted to the widow of this late member of the West Riding Constabulary is a matter for the police authority of that force, and I have no authority to give any directions to the police authority in the matter.

Mr. Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the police authority would certainly grant a pension if it were not for an interpretation of the Statute which appears to be made by the Home Office?

Mr. Morrison: The Home Office has no power to interpret Statutes. The lady concerned has a statutory right of appeal to quarter sessions against the decision of the police authority, but she has not exercised that right.

Mr. Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the lady is in very reduced circumstances, having also lost a son in the war, and that she is in no position to take the matter to court?

Mr. Morrison: I am very sorry, but I have personally no power in the matter whatever.

Mr. Thomas: I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — STATELESS PERSONS (DEPORTATION ORDERS)

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many deportation orders have been served on persons who have lost their nationality; and what he proposes to do with such persons who are now detained under Regulation 12.5A.

Mr. H. Morrison: It is not the practice to serve deportation orders on persons whom there is no prospect of deporting. Stateless persons holding valid Nansen certificates are generally received back on request by the national Government which issued the certificate. As regards a case in which a person who possessed a foreign nationality on arrival in this country has subsequently been deprived of it, it should not be assumed that the Government con-

cerned should, or always will, repudiate obligation to receive such a person back into its territory on request. There are also detained under Article 12 (5) A of the Aliens Orders some persons whose national status can only be established by enquiries which are not practicable under war conditions. Endeavours will be made after the war to secure the return to their countries of origin of persons in these classes.

Mr. Hogg: Having regard to the fact that all those people are, presumably, of bad character and that detention under 12 (5) A involves a period of imprisonment possibly for years, cannot my right hon. Friend consider a more humane method of detention that will still be consistent with public safety?

Mr. Morrison: I am always willing to consider suggestions on that point, and these cases are regularly reviewed. The House may take it that if persons have been detained for some time there is good reason for doing so, although the cases will again be reviewed in the future and it may be that other decisions will be reached.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIEN (DETENTION)

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered the case of a stateless man, whose name has been sent to him, who has been detained in the Isle of Man for over three years on a deportation order made against him as the result of pre-war convictions for dishonesty; and whether in view of the fact that this man left Poland at the age of six, has resided in Great Britain ever since, has a British-born wife, three British sons and three step-sons, all serving in His Majesty's Forces and willing to undertake responsibility for his maintenance, he will now consider his release.

Mr. H. Morrison: This case has been carefully considered. The claim that the alien in question is stateless is of doubtful validity; he is believed to possess either Polish or German nationality. He came to this country in 1914 as a refugee from Belgium at the age of 12. Since 1923 he has been convicted no less than 9 times on indictment and twice in magistrates' courts of serious offences.


When, in 1941, he finished a sentence of penal servitude, every effort would, but for the war, have been made to deport him; and the fact that the war rendered deportation impracticable was not, in my view, a reason for giving him further opportunities to prey on the public. Like other similar cases, this case will, of course, continue to be reviewed periodically.

Mr. Petherick: Can my right hon. Friend say why this man was not deported years ago?

Mr. Morrison: I could not say, without notice. There are often difficulties about deportation. I could not answer about the details.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE (DISBANDMENT)

Major Procter: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he proposes to introduce legislation providing for the disbandment of the National Fire Service and the retransfer to local authorities of their respective fire brigades.

Mr. H. Morrison: I Would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the Answer I gave on 7th December to my hon. Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick).

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE

Regional Organisation (Continuance)

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what functions are now carried out by Regional Commissioners and their staffs; what is the annual cost of these organisations; and whether their continued existence is necessary under present conditions.

Mr. H. Morrison: The primary function of Regional Commissioners and their staffs is to co-ordinate in their regions the activities of Government Departments and local authorities in civil defence in its broadest aspects. So long as any danger from air attacks continues, this function must remain, and I am, therefore, satisfied that the continued existence of Regional Commissioners is necessary

under present conditions. As I have already stated in answer to previous Questions in the House, however, my policy is to adjust the civil defence organisation to public need. But I would point out that the process of reducing the civil defence services throws on the Regional organisation extra work which would otherwise have to be done centrally. The annual cost of the regional organisation is £901,750, of which £816,750 represents salaries and £85,000 travelling.

Sir G. Jeffreys: As the operational part of the Regional Commissioners' duties has practically ceased over a large part of the Kingdom, is there any reason why their staffs, at any rate, should not be very largely reduced as well as their administrative duties, in view of the fact that they really only create an extra link in the chain of correspondence between local authorities and Government Departments?

Mr. Morrison: May I say, with great respect, that I disagree with nearly everything that my hon. and gallant Friend has said? There has been very substantial reduction in the regional staffs. Secondly, unless we are to disband the whole Civil Defence organisation everywhere, which I think would be foolhardy, we must have a regional organisation.

Dr. Russell Thomas: Was not the creation of these Regional Commissioners, in the first place, part of the organisation of our preparation far meeting invasion?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, my hon. Friend is also quite wrong about that.

London Region (Staff)

Captain Duncan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the total number of officers employed on the staff of the London region in connection with Civil Defence on 1st June and 1st December and the estimated number to be so employed on 1st January, 1945; and to what extent the reduction in staff corresponds with the reductions in the corresponding staffs of the London local authorities.

Mr. H. Morrison: The staff employed at the London Regional Commissioners' Headquarters and on operational duties at group centres on the 1st June, 1944, and the 1st December, 1944, were 815


and 650 respectively. It is estimated that the number that will be in post on the 1st January, 1945, will be 615. It is not possible to give comparable figures for the administrative, supervisory, training and control staff of the local authorities without reference to such authorities. Some reductions are, however, being made, but I understand that they are not at present on so substantial a scale.

Captain Duncan: Is it not advisable, in order to keep the London Civil Defence organisation in some sort of order, to keep the local authority staff and reduce the Commissioner's staff. Is that being done? It is not clear from the answer.

Mr. Morrison: The local authority staff is being kept, so far as possible, on an appropriate level, and exactly the same thing is being done with the London regional staff.

Shelter Accident, Bethnal Green (Inquiry)

Mr. Reakes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has considered the comment of the Master of the Rolls when dismissing the appeal of the Bethnal Green Corporation against damages awarded against them in a lower court in connection with the air-raid shelter disaster, that the grounds on which the Ministry of Home Security had insisted upon the inquiry being held in camera were flimsy; and what steps he is taking to review his Department's action in this case.

Mr. H. Morrison: I am obtaining a transcript of the judgment and I would like to study it before making any comment.

Motor Vehicles (Headlights)

Mr. Jewson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now remove the war-time restrictions on car head-lamps, with a view to relieving the strain of driving during the hours of darkness.

Mr. H. Morrison: I fear I cannot at present add anything to the answer I gave to a similar Question by my hon. Friend on 5th October last.

Captain Gammans: Will any discretion be given to the police regarding headlights during fog?

Mr. Morrison: I will consider that suggestion. Discretion to the police is often rather embarrassing, but I will consider the point.

Sir Herbert Williams: Who gives discretion to the police to light great flares in the streets during the fog?

Mr. Morrison: I expect it is the chief officer of police.

Captain Strickland: Has my right hon. Friend taken into consideration the accident liability, which is now very prevalent, in regard to shaded lights and the pools of light created by the street lighting orders? Is he aware that these have created dark patches that are almost impossible to penetrate with the present head-lamps?

Mr. Morrison: It is a hard world, I must say. When the argument was used from official quarters that the patchiness of the lighting might be a difficulty, the representative motoring organisations said "Not at all; get on with the lighting."

Oral Answers to Questions — MAINTENANCE ORDERS (DEFAULT)

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider the possibility of changing the law under which a debt owed under default in payment of maintenance orders is liquidated by a term of imprisonment and will make it possible for the court to order a direct stoppage from earnings.

Mr. H. Morrison: Legislation on the lines suggested would be highly controversial and I cannot hold out any hope of its introduction.

Sir A. Knox: Is not the Minister aware that the present system is most unfair, as the claimant gets no benefit out of the husband, or whoever it may be, going to prison?

Mr. Morrison: I quite agree that there are arguments both ways about the matter, but, in the present state of the legislative programme, I am afraid that I could not go into this very difficult and controversial matter.

Sir A. Knox: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider putting it in the queue?

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES VOTING (CONFERENCE)

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether His Majesty's Government propose to make any further provision to enable members of the Forces to vote at the forthcoming General Election.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what provision it is proposed to make to enable the maximum number of Service men and women to vote at the General Election.

Mr. H. Morrison: As my hon. Friends are aware, provision has already been made by the Parliamentary Electors (War-time Registration) Act, 1943, whereby members of the Forces who, but for their service as members of the Forces, would be residing in this country, may be registered in the Service Register, but they may only record their vote by proxy if serving abroad at the time of the election. It is recognised, however, that voting by proxy is by no means the most satisfactory method of voting and that it would be preferable to afford postal voting facilities where such a system is feasible. His Majesty's Government have accordingly invited my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to convene and preside over a conference to consider the practicability of extending postal voting to members of the Forces and seamen overseas and war workers abroad over a wide geographical area as possible, on the assumption that the system would not be operated until the conclusion of hostilities in Europe. It is proposed that the conference should include Members of this House representative of the main political parties selected, registration and returning officers in England, Wales and Scotland, and officers of the Government Departments concerned, together with the chief party agents. If a suitable scheme is devised, it is hoped to give effect to it by inserting the necessary provisions in the Representation of the People Bill, which was introduced yesterday.

Mr. Bellenger: Although the House will be very gratified to hear my right hon. Friend's remarks, may we take it that he will set up this conference with the greatest possible speed, even though the House of Commons may be in Recess, in

view of the eventuality of an early General Election?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, as a matter of fact, I have already issued letters inviting persons to serve on it.

Sir Hugh O'Neill: Is it not a fact that if a system is adopted of postal voting for Forces abroad, it will mean very considerable delay between the casting and the counting of the votes?

Mr. Morrison: It will presumably involve some delay, but we do not think that it will be sufficiently serious to cause us anxiety.

Mr. Driberg: Will the conference be able to consider the rather difficult point of the considerable number of men in the Services who have no fixed domicile in this country and do not know exactly where they will be living after the war?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir, it will be quite competent for the conference to consider that point.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Uncertificated Teachers

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Cook: asked the Minister of Education if he has any statement to make regarding the financial position of uncertificated teachers.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Butler): I have decided that as from 1st April, 1945, uncertificated teachers who have then served for 20 years or more shall be graded as qualified teachers. Uncertificated teachers who have served for between five and 20 years will be eligible, as soon as they can be spared from the schools and suitable training facilities can be provided, to take a special one year course of training, the satisfactory completion of which will entitle them to be graded as qualified teachers. Appropriate maintenance grants will be made available during the period of training. An announcement giving details of these arrangements will be issued by the Ministry in due course. The fixing of salary scales appropriate to the grades of qualified and unqualified teachers is a matter for the Burnham Committee in the first instance.

Excepted Districts (Applications)

Mr. George Griffiths: asked the Minister of Education if he will give a list, by administrative counties, of those county districts, distinguishing between boroughs and urban districts, who have applied under the terms of paragraph 4 of Part III of the First Schedule to the Education Act, 1944, to be an excepted district by reason of special circumstances, together with the decision of the Minister on the applications.

Mr. Butler: If my hon. Friend will put down a question next Thursday I shall be in a position to give him a more complete answer than is at present the case.

Teachers' Salaries

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Minister of Education whether he will reconsider the proportionate cost paid by his Department towards teachers' salaries in view of the recent recommendations of the Soulbury Committee.

Mr. Butler: I am not in a position to make any statement on this matter at the present time.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSES (SALE PRICES)

Captain Strickland: asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to cases in which dwelling-houses have recently been sold at such prices as remove them from the possibility of letting at an economic rent and, in view of the effect of this on the availability of such houses to those needing them as tenants and the possibility of controlling the selling prices within a reasonable limit, he will take the appropriate action.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: asked the Minister of Health whether, in order to check the rising prices of houses for sale with vacant possession, he will make it essential for the vendor of a house to obtain from the district valuer a certificate showing the value of the property in March, 1939, and will fix a maximum price by adding a permitted percentage to this 1939 valuation.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Willink): I would refer my hon. Friends to the reply given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Dorset (Major Digby) on 28th September last.

Mr. Bartlett: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say when the Committee which is now dealing with this matter will have finished its work?

Mr. Willink: There is no Committee dealing with this matter. The relevant Committee dealing with the question of rent control, which is very closely related to this matter, will, I hope, report not later than February.

Mr. Keeling: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a very serious matter in Greater London, part of which he himself represents?

Mr. Willink: I am aware that it is a difficult matter, but I could not possibly deal with it until I have had a report from the Rent Control Committee, on which a very considerable number of hon. Members of this House are serving.

Mr. Graham White: Has the right hon. Gentleman any statistical record regarding the volume of these houses, because it is a very burning question indeed throughout the North of England?

Mr. Willink: I have a considerable amount of evidence, but I would not like to call it a statistical record.

Oral Answers to Questions — NURSES REGISTRATION ACT (FEES)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of Health whether he will amend Section 19 of the Nurses Act, 1943, so that fees paid by registered nurses pursuant to the Nurses Registration Act, 1919, should be devoted solely to the benefit of such registered nurses.

Mr. Willink: No, Sir. I know the intention of the General Nursing Council to be that the part of their work relating to the enrolment of assistant nurses shall be financially self-supporting. No such amendment as my hon. Friend suggests appears, therefore, to be necessary.

Sir W. Smithers: In view of the fact that the Minister did not deny the great injustice, are we to look in vain to Ministers of the Crown to remove it?

Mr. Willink: No question was asked with regard to injustice. I know of none.

Oral Answers to Questions — GIBRALTAR EVACUEES, NORTHERN IRELAND

Sir H. O'Neill: asked the Minister of Health if he has any statement to make about the recent visit by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Gibraltar evacuee camps in Ulster.

Mr. Willink: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary informs me that, though the camps present some discomforts, particularly for those used to urban conditions and a warmer climate, she is satisfied that everything possible is being done for the welfare of the evacuees. She found that the health of the evacuees remains good, that the sick bays were practically empty, that the children looked particularly well and that the food was excellent. The Government of Northern Ireland, to whom I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks for all that they are doing to alleviate the difficult conditions of a prolonged exile, expect that all camps will soon have schools and nurseries in working order.

Sir H. O'Neill: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that those who have seen these camps, including myself, feel that the conditions are not suitable for the people in them? Is he also aware that these people can get no employment, and have practically no money?

Mr. Willink: I know the difficulties there are, and I am answering a further Question later this morning dealing with the points which my right hon. Friend has raised. We are doing our very best; we are very sympathetic indeed to these people. A great many of them have already returned to Gibraltar, and I am in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to those who at the moment remain.

Viscountess Astor: Is it not a fact that the Government have, on the whole, been extremely good to these people from Gibraltar ever since they arrived? I think they should be deeply grateful for the attention they have received.

Sir William Davison: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the bad conditions in which some 5,000 Gibraltarian evacuees are now being housed in camps in Northern Ireland, many of them in the depth of the country

where no work is available and practically no amusement of any kind; what was the reason for their deportation from England, where they were fully and gainfully employed; and will immediate steps be taken to deal with this matter, which is causing serious discontent among these subjects of the Crown.

Mr. Willink: On the first part of the Question I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave earlier to my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill). I know of no alternative accommodation available in which materially better conditions could be provided. The evacuees, nearly three-quarters of whom are women and children, were moved from London during the flying bomb attacks, both as part of the general plan for evacuation and to release accommodation for repair workers and for homeless people. At that time I received urgent requests from the evacuees that they should be removed from London. I am aware that the evacuees are discontented that it has not been possible to send them back to Gibraltar more quickly. This is due chiefly to the difficulty of housing them in Gibraltar and also, in a minor degree, to that of transport. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies and I are doing all that we can, in consultation with the Governor of Gibraltar, to find early means of over-coming these difficulties.

Sir W. Davison: While I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, I hope he will regard it as very undesirable that a large number of people in the small population of Gibraltar should return there with a sense of grievance.

Mr. Willink: It would be very difficult if they returned there and found nowhere to live.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREECE

Dominion Governments (Consultation)

Mr. Edgar Granville: asked the Prime Minister if he can give an assurance that the Dominion Governments have been consulted at each stage in the action taken by His Majesty's Government in Greece; and whether this aspect of foreign policy has been approved by them.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): It is not physically possible to consult the Dominion Governments as to every step which the fast moving developments of the war render necessary. They have however throughout been kept closely and continuously informed of what is taking place.

Mr. Granville: Does that reply mean that the Dominion Governments were consulted before the War Cabinet decision was taken, and before military action was taken, and not merely informed afterwards? Can the Prime Minister say if it is still the practice, as enunciated by him in this House, that the representatives of the Dominion Governments shall be invited to War Cabinet meetings when questions of this kind are being discussed?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is mixing up several different kinds of things. Great questions of policy like whether we should go to the aid of Greece after the Germans were driven out, are made manifest to the Dominions by the continued succession of telegrams which are sent from this country, and which give them a perfect, full picture of the situation. The executive measures which are sometimes forced to be taken with the greatest speed, owing to danger to life and limb—these measures it is not possible to refer to Governments all over the world. But they have been kept fully informed of everything that happens as it goes forward, and the Dominions Secretary informs me that I could rightfully say that we have received from the Dominion Governments no indications that they dissent from the action we have been compelled to take.

Mr. Cocks: How long do the Government intend to go on with this policy of murdering——

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is the Prime Minister aware that I am being inundated with telegrams from engineers all over England, threatening a down-tools policy against the part that is being played by the Government in Greece at the moment?

Sir Herbert Holdsworth: On a point of Order. Should not the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) be asked to withdraw his imputation against the Prime Minister?

Mr. Speaker: Let us get on with the business.

Mr. Kirkwood: Could I not get a reply from the Prime Minister? What am I to say to the engineers?

The Prime Minister: I am anxious to oblige in every way, especially my hon. Friend, whom I have known so long. I can quite believe that he would receive many telegrams from many parts of the country over a matter which causes so much heart-searching. I gave a long account of this matter to the House the other day, and I may take occasion to give some further account to the country; but we have laid our case very fully before the House, and it was discussed very fully and freely at the Parliamentary Conference yesterday. I have nothing at this moment to add to what has been said.

Liberation Campaign (British Casualties)

Mr. Bowles: asked the Prime Minister what are our losses in men, ships and aircraft suffered since our landing in Greece, this year, up to 3rd December.

The Prime Minister: So far as can be ascertained, the total casualties sustained by the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Imperial Military Forces in Greece since our landing this year, in response to the appeal of the Greek Government, were, up to the end of November, under 300. This figure includes killed, wounded, missing or prisoners of war. About 160 additional military casualties—I have not the naval and air figures but they are not large—of whom 35 are killed must be added since that date Eight minor naval vessels and 32 aircraft have been lost in the same period.

Mr. Bowles: Does not that mean that all these casualties were suffered in fighting against Germans, in Greece, on the mainland?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That was the point of the Question, and the answer was given so as to show the very heavy sacrifices we have made for the general liberation of Greece from the Italians and Germans. There is no harm in stating that.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR-TIME MILITARY OFFENCES (SENTENCES)

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Prime Minister what will be the position at the


end of the war with Germany of men in the Services undergoing terms of imprisonment or penal servitude for military offences.

The Prime Minister: So far as concerns the present Government, it is not the intention to grant any general remission of sentences. Offences such as desertion, which comprise the bulk of these sentences, involve at the best an added strain upon the man-power of this country, and at the worst forfeit the lives of other soldiers who have to fill the places of these deserters. Such very serious offences are happily rare, and in the opinion of His Majesty's Government there can be no reason why the men concerned should not complete their sentences, irrespective of the end of the war with Germany or the end of the war with Japan.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the deterrent effect of these sentences was very much decreased at the end of the last war by wholesale reductions? Will he bear that fact in mind, if any pressure is put upon him to reduce such sentences?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That is why I thought it my painful duty to make the pronouncement that I have just made to the House.

Mr. Bellenger: Does the Prime Minister know that there are other cases, besides those of desertion, where sentences have been passed and suspended, and the men have been sent back into the line? I know of two men who in such cases have given their lives for their country, and, I think, have expiated their crimes, which were not great crimes. Will the Prime Minister consider those cases, where sentences have been suspended and the men are retrieving their characters?

The Prime Minister: That system was introduced at the end of the last war. The sentence is suspended, and the man goes into the line, under certain restrictions as to leave, fatigue duty, and so on, but he has an opportunity of retrieving his character. There are cases of men not only having lost their lives, and so having retrieved their characters, but also of men having shown courage and bravery, and having retrieved fully their position among their comrades and having been relieved of the sentences altogether. I am talking of cases which do not fall within

that well-established practice of the British Army.

Mr. John Dugdale: Will such men as continue to serve their sentences be brought back to this country after the termination of hostilities with Germany, and allowed to serve the sentences in camps here?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, certainly. I have no doubt that that would be the course that would be followed. In fact, in some cases I think they have already been returned.

Mr. E. J. Williams: Will the Prime Minister state that the dependants of these men should not suffer in perpetuity for anything that the men have done?

The Prime Minister: I could not answer that. That question should be addressed to the War Office. But I do not imagine that a man who is serving a long sentence, and is not actually fighting at the front, would have the advantages which come to him as a father or a husband in the ordinary circumstances. But a question addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will clear up that detail, on which I cannot pronounce.

Mr. Buchanan: May we take it that nothing in the Prime Minister's answer will interfere with the present practice, under which, even when a man is sentenced, if certain facts are brought to light afterwards, the Secretary of State for War reviews the position?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, nothing can impede or impair the prerogative of mercy on which the Home Secretary advises the King.

Oral Answers to Questions — COUNT SFORZA (ITALIAN MONARCHY)

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Prime Minister whether the question of the retention of Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy was discussed at his interview with Count Sforza.

The Prime Minister: I informed Count Sforza that I welcomed the assurance he had given to the United States Government in his letter to Mr. Berle, which I read to the House on 8th December, that matters of internal politics, including the monarchy, should be adjourned until Italy was free. As regards the future


that would be for the Italian people to decide.

Mr. Bellenger: I do not think my right hon. Friend has answered my Question. Has his attention been called to the statement, alleged to have been made by Count Sforza, that my right hon. Friend spent a good deal of the time of the interview urging the retention of Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy? How does that conform to the oft-repeated assurances, which he has given in this House, that His Majesty's Government have no desire to interfere in constitutional matters affecting these other countries?

The Prime Minister: That is not so at all. I gave at the time a full account of the matter to the House. The speech is on record in which I explained that I thought it better to go on with the King Victor Emmanuel-Badoglio regime until the military situation had got into better condition. We did go on for a very considerable time, the results not being unsatisfactory so far as our Armies are concerned. I certainly said nothing in my conversations with Count Sforza which I had not already made clear as being the policy of His Majesty's Government at that time. It is quite true that Count Sforza, as far as my memory serves me, descanted a great deal upon the evils which come to a country when the senior reigning family in the country is displaced by a junior reigning family, like the House of Savoy, but I was not quite clear, and I am still not quite clear, about all the implications of his conversation on that point.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: Did not Count Sforza make it clear at the interview that he made a very sharp distinction between the institutional question of the monarchy, which is to be held in abeyance until the Constituent Assembly, and the personal question of King Victor Emmanuel, to whom he never promised any support?

The Prime Minister: He certainly expressed an animus against King Victor Emmanuel, with whom he had very lengthy, and not at all unnatural, disagreement, but the statements which I made to him were within the lines of the statement I made at that time publicly to Parliament. That is what I am responsible for.

Viscountess Astor: Is it not true that Stalin backed up the Government in keeping the Badoglio Government in office? Was it not Stalin's wish, and did not he come with us?

The Prime Minister: It is quite true that the Soviet Government, of course, did recognise the Badoglio Government under King Victor, but the matter was not then so heated and lively a topic as it is now.

Mr. Stokes: Is it not a fact that Count Sforza's support of the Badoglio regime was always dependent on the abdication of King Victor, and that he only gave his support to the Badoglio Government on that condition?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend had better make another speech like the one he made to the airmen.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Mr. Rex Paterson, Hatch Warren, Basingstoke

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Minister of Agriculture if the dispute between the Hampshire War Agricultural Executive Committee and Mr. Rex Paterson, of Hatch Warren, near Basingstoke, has been brought to his attention, and, having regard to the findings of the committee appointed to investigate the case, which vindicated Mr. Paterson, what instructions is he giving the Hampshire War Agricultural Executive Committee to avoid similar interference being practised in future and to impress upon them the duty of co-operating with farmers if the maximum of food production is to be achieved and that this purpose will be defeated by adopting a vindictive policy.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): By now, my hon. Friend will no doubt have seen the reply given to my hon. and gallant Friend, the Member for Wells (Lieut.-Colonel Boles) on 7th December, which sets out the position in detail. I am sending him a copy.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: May I ask if there is to be some form of supervision as regards the proper use of agricultural land after the war; and will the Minister give an assurance that those responsible for this supervision will be democratically elected from the industry, and that there will be a right of appeal to an independent tribunal?

Mr. Hudson: That is a hypothetical question.

Mr. Edgar Granville: May I ask if the farmer in question was given an opportunity to state his case to the Minister of Agriculture, or to some independent tribunal?

Mr. Hudson: As I explained in my reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Wells (Lieut.-Colonel Boles), if this farmer had carried out the undertakings he gave to the committee, none of this trouble would have arisen.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: On a point of Order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I propose to raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Prisoner of War Labour

Major York: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will give instructions to his war agricultural executive committee officers in charge of prisoner-of-war labour that where labour is not required for farm work it may be allocated to woodland owners for cleaning and clearing woodlands.

Mr. Hudson: It has already been done.

Markets and Prices (Guarantee)

Major York: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consider, at the February review of price levels, the extension of the four-year guarantee of markets and prices for one further year.

Mr. Hudson: No, Sir.

Major York: Will the Minister consult with his colleagues, particularly his Liberal and Labour colleagues, to see whether this small step should not be taken to further the stability of agriculture?

Bovine Tuberculosis (Treatment)

Major York: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the rapid extension of the use of the homœpathic treatment of tuberculosis in cattle; and whether he will now arrange for tests of this treatment to be made.

Mr. Hudson: I have no information as to the extent to which the treatment referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend is being used. With regard to the latter part of the Question, there is no scientific evidence of the efficacy of homœpathic treatment of bovine tuberculosis.

Major York: Is the Minister aware that, although there is no scientific evidence, there is great practical evidence of the value of this treatment; and, in view of the fact that a very large number of tuberculin tested herds in this country are now using it, would it not be a good thing for the Minister of Agriculture to look into it?

Women's Land Army, Norfolk

Sir T. Cook: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware of the shortage of members of the W.L.A. in Norfolk; and whether he will take steps to rectify the position.

Mr. Hudson: The shortage of Women's Land Army labour, although not very great, is now general throughout the country and I regret that I am unable to make special arrangements to meet the deficiency in Norfolk.

Long-term Policy

Sir Joseph Lamb: asked the Minister of Agriculture if discussion is now taking place between his Department and the agricultural industry with regard to a long-term policy for agriculture, particularly in relationship to other industries in this country and the Hot Springs resolutions.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, as distinct from the recent pronouncement for a transitional period in connection with the fixing of farm prices, the Government are considering formulating a definite long-term policy to incorporate and implement the recommendations of the Hot Springs Conference.

Mr. Hudson: I have nothing at present to add to recent statements on this subject.

Mr. De la Bère: Is the Minister not aware that this is very unsatisfactory, in view of the fact that farmers do not know where they stand in regard to a long-term policy for agriculture?

Mr. Hudson: I have said that, over a period of years, farmers will have to make a continued and sustained effort, and that it will be some years before that effort can come to an end.

Sir J. Lamb: Are we to understand that no conversations whatever on a long-term policy for agriculture have taken place?

Mr. Hudson: My hon. Friend must not understand that.

Mr. De la Dère: There is nothing hypothetical about me.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will state the Business for next week?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): The Business for next week will be as follows:
Tuesday, 19th December—Second Reading of the Representation of the People Bill, and the Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution; Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill.
Wednesday, 20th December—Motion to adjourn on Thursday, 21st December, to Tuesday, 16th January; Committee stage and Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, and a Motion to approve the Cinematograph Films (Labour Costs Amendment) and (Quota Amendment) Orders.
On Thursday, 21st December, the House will adjourn for the Christmas Recess.

Mr. Bowles: Will Questions be taken on Thursday?

Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir. I think that is the normal practice.

SELECTION (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL) (PARLIAMENT ACT, 1911)

Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew reported from the Committee of Selection: That, in pursuance of Sub-section (3) of Section 1 of the Parliament Act, 1911, they had appointed from the Chairmen's Panel Sir Cyril Entwistle and Mr. McLean Watson to be the two Members whom Mr. Speaker shall consult, if practicable, before giving his certificate to a Money Bill.

RECRUITMENT TO THE CIVIL SERVICE

12.3 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Anderson): I beg to move,
That this House approves the proposals contained in Command Paper No. 6567 for recruitment to established posts in the Civil Service during the reconstruction period.
The House will, no doubt, remember that in February last I made a short statement indicating in general terms the principles which, in the view of the Government, should be followed in regard to post-war recruitment to the Civil Service. I then made it clear that the Government contemplated restoring at the earliest possible date the normal system of recruitment for accruing vacancies, but that vacancies which had accumulated during the war, for which there has been no recruitment on a permanent basis, would be dealt with under special arrangements. I made it clear that, in the view of the Government, these arrangements should be such as to provide generous treatment for men who had served in the Armed Forces during the war, but that there would also be some special provision for those who had served during the war in temporary capacities in the Civil Departments. I ended my statement by saying that the Government proposed to remit the matter for further study within the limits indicated in my statement by the National Whitley Council for the Civil Service, or rather by a Special Committee of that body.
As I think the House knows, the National Whitley Council for the Civil Service was set up, following the recommendations of the Committee presided over by the late Mr. Whitley, which applied over a wide field, to fulfil for the Civil Service certain functions which were clearly laid down, and which did include specifically a study of the problems of recruitment to the Civil Service. It was, therefore, perfectly natural that that body, which on the one side is representative of the Government Departments in their employing capacity and on the other side is very widely representative of the various staff organisations which have been recognised by the Government for purposes of negotiation, should have been entrusted with this particular task. I am now in the position of commending to the House and to Parliament the results of the work which has been carried out by the


Special Committee of the National Whitley Council. Before I come to the substance of the Report, I ought perhaps to make this clear, that, as was to be expected, following the statement which I had made on behalf of the Government, they put suggestions of their own, which were submitted through the official side in the ordinary course, for consideration by the Committee, and at all stages during that consideration the Government were in touch with their own representatives on the Committee. So that this plan although it is a plan framed after close discussion by the Committee of the Whitley Council, does in fact embody proposals which have been adopted with the full approval of the Government, and which I am in a position to-day to commend to the favourable consideration of the House of Commons.
Let me proceed to deal with the main features of the plan embodied in this White Paper. There are two or three matters of principle which should be clearly understood before one proceeds to deal with the details. First, as will be seen, it is contemplated that all the vacancies which have arisen during the period of the war in the permanent establishments, whether by death, retirement or in any other way, with the addition of any posts that may have been added to the establishment during that period, should be reserved, subject to certain points to which I will refer later, for competition between those persons who have been prevented by reasons directly connected with the war from taking advantage of opportunities that would otherwise have been open to them to compete for positions in His Majesty's Civil Service. There will, therefore, be that definite reservation of accrued vacancies for competition under special arrangements by those persons, male and female, whom I have described. Let me add that, in order to ensure that there shall be fair treatment as between one and another, arrangements will be made, in connection with the special competitions that will be held, to spread those accrued vacancies over a sufficient period to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that candidates whose discharge from the Army has been of necessity deferred should not be at any disadvantage, as compared with those who are discharged in the earlier period after the termination of hostilities.
The next point of principle that should be clearly appreciated, is that it is the intention of the Government, as I indicated in my earlier statement, that concurrently with the special competition for the accrued vacancies there should be resumed normal competition for accruing vacancies, so that the two systems will, over a term of years, be running side by side. The normal competitions for the accruing vacancies will be conducted subject to the ordinary age limits and candidates coming forward in the ordinary course from school, college and university, will, as before the war, be free to compete for those vacancies. It is our deliberate intention to avoid on this occasion what happened after the last war, when, for quite a considerable period after the termination of hostilities, vacancies in permanent establishments were allowed to remain unfilled, being blocked by people serving in a temporary capacity.
We intend now to proceed in the manner I have described over a term of years, and, in order to have fair treatment as between man and man, and man and woman, we intend to fill permanently, to the fullest extent possible, vacancies on the permanent establishments, thereby reducing to an absolute minimum the posts which may still have to be kept filled for a time by temporary civil servants. We shall, in that way, avoid to a large extent, though probably it cannot be avoided altogether, the difficult problem that arose after the last war, in connection with the claims that naturally develop on the part of persons who have been recruited on no particular principle, but have served for long periods in a temporary capacity and have legitimate ground for complaint if they are got rid of, without being afforded proper opportunity of obtaining permanent positions.

Mr. David Grenfell: Can my right hon. Friend clear up one point? I have received correspondence from many people who passed the examination to enter the Civil Service in various Departments but who were prevented from taking up their posts by the exigencies of military service, on joining the Forces. Are their places being kept open for them until military service ends?

Sir J. Anderson: I should think that that was so, certainly, but I was not aware of the type of case to which my


hon. Friend has referred. Certainly, it is important that we should see that no injustice is done, if there be any such cases. I am not sure whether he means people who passed examinations before the war but had not been assigned to vacancies. If they will not be given appointments on the strength of the examinations which they have already passed they certainly ought to have facilities for competing in the special competition to be held now; but I will look into that point.
As regards the details of the special recruitment scheme, I think it will be convenient for me to touch on certain points at the outset of this Debate. The idea is that the age-limits for the special competition should be the normal limits for the various classes of appointments with, added to those limits, the number of years of the war during which persons have been prevented from competing. That is the first principle that is to be applied—the age limits will be extended to cover the period of the war during which the potential candidates had no opportunity to compete. But the scheme goes a little further than that, because the Committee have suggested that in view of the disturbance caused by the war to those who had just entered upon a career not in the Civil Service, it would be reasonable that some facilities should be afforded to them—the course of their lives having been diverted in this way—to change their ideas as to their future career and offer themselves for competition in the Service. There must be, obviously, a limit to the extent to which effect can be given to that principle, but the proposal of the Committee has been met, in the plan before the House, by extending the age limits beyond the point which would be reached, on the principle I have defined, of adding the years of the war to the normal age limits, by making the upper age limit in all cases 30. Subject to the termination of the war, that should add quite a number of years to the upper age limit in the case of the clerical and executive classes and one or two years in the case of the administrative class. There is a point in that connection to which I would refer. The Committee have recommended that the candidates coming forward within the extended age limits should be divided, and that four-fifths of the vacancies should be reserved for candidates coming in on the ordinary

age limits plus the years of the war and the remaining one-fifth reserved for competition among the older candidates. It seems to me that that is a reasonable recommendation, made with the object of avoiding what might be unfair competition between people who have been many years away from their studies and those who have comparatively recently left school, college or university. Those older men, therefore, will have a separate competition, except in the case of the administrative class, where the circumstances are rather different and where the effect of the age limit of 30 will be to add a comparatively small period of time to the limits that would otherwise apply.
The competition—I am speaking now of what I call the special competition, not the new normal competition which is to be started at the earliest possible date, but the competition for those whose opportunities of entering the service have been affected by the war—will be open to all comers, male or female, who possess the prescribed qualifications, that is to say, who are within the limits of age prescribed and who have the educational qualifications which it is suggested should be laid down for the various classes of recruits.
In arriving at the number of vacancies to be competed for in the special competition, vacancies which, I have said, would be reserved for the special categories of persons who had been denied the opportunity of competing in the ordinary course, there have been one or two reservations which I ought to make clear. In the first place, it is proposed that a certain proportion of vacancies should be reserved, in accordance with the principle I indicated in my statement of last February, for persons who have been serving in a temporary capacity in the Civil Service during the war, and the proportion of vacancies which it is suggested should be so reserved has been put at 15 per cent. of the vacancies in the executive and clerical classes. Over and above that there will be a small reservation for the higher posts in the Service, which will be open to persons who have shown by their performance during the war that they possess in a special degree the qualifications necessary in the public service. This is dealt with in paragraphs 32 to 34 of the Report.


There will also be a small reservation, the extent of which has not yet been worked out, for permanent civil servants who in the ordinary course would have been free to compete for higher posts in the Service—for permanent clericals who might have been able to compete for executive posts, for executives who might have been able to compete for administrative posts, and so on. Many of these persons will not be eligible for the special competition, and unless some provision were made in a reasonable way for a limited number of vacancies for them, they would definitely suffer an injustice as a result of the war. But subject to those reservations, which, except for the 15 per cent. for the temporaries, will not affect materially the number of vacancies to be thrown open for this special competition, all the vacancies which are vacancies in the permanent establishment will be available for competition.
Now I come to the very important question of the treatment of ex-Service candidates. In my statement in February, as I have reminded the House, I said it was the view of the Government that generous treatment should be given to men who had been in the Fighting Services during the war, and I conceive that it is my duty on this occasion to justify to the House, from that point of view, the proposals which I am commending to their favourable consideration. Hon. Members who have read the Report will have seen that the proposal is that a varying proportion, according to the different classes of the Service, should be reserved absolutely for ex-Service candidates. In the case of the administrative class the proportion is put in the Report at 75 per cent., in the case of the executive class at 66⅔ per cent., and in the case of the clerical class at 50 per cent. I propose to take the lowest, the 50 per cent., for the purposes of illustration in order to show how that percentage has been arrived at and why I think that it does fulfil fully the expectation that was held out in my earlier statement. Before I come to the actual percentage let me first point out that the very fact that some percentage of posts is absolutely reserved for ex-Service candidates, provided they reach the minimum standards laid down, does constitute a very definite preference. I shall explain to the House that a further prefer-

ence has been given in these proposals in the percentages of reservation laid down.
Taking the clerical class, the position is that before the war candidates in the examinations for the clerical class were successful in the proportions, roughly, of 60 per cent. men and 40 per cent. women. I feel sure that no one would suggest that the circumstances of the war constitute any reason why women in their candidature for the Civil Service should be treated less favourably in these post-war arrangements than would have been the case had there been no war, and, therefore, I suggest that 60 per cent. of the vacancies should in the case of the clerical class be regarded as prima facie men's vacancies. Now it is a question of how many of this 60 per cent. should go to ex-Servicemen by reservation, because there will be no limit at all as regards competition; the ex-Service men will always get as many of the vacancies as would come to them according to their order of merit in the examination. Taking the 60 per cent., it is a fact that in the age groups covered by the arrangements for the clerical class 70 per cent. of the potential candidates, excluding for this purpose manual workers, will be ex-Servicemen; that is to say, the field of possible recruitment, excluding manual workers, consists as to 70 per cent. of men in the Services and 30 per cent. of men not in the Services—men who had been directed into civil employment, men of low medical categories not considered fit for the Fighting Services, but not on that account, in the majority of cases, ruled out so far as the Civil Service is concerned. There will be 70 per cent. Service candidates and 30 per cent. non-Service. There can be no question, under these arrangements, of disqualifying anyone who would otherwise qualify within the age limits and has the necessary educational qualifications. Seventy per cent. of 60, which is prima facie the share of the men, is, if my arithmetic serves, 42. The proposal in the Report is a reservation of 50, which I suggest, on that approach is perfectly fair. A reservation of 50 as against a statistical figure of 42 does, in fact, constitute a very real preference, and amounts to the generous treatment which I promised would be given to ex-Service candidates.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer make it clear


that 42 per cent. of the total, or 50 per cent. as the Report says, is a minimum, and that there is nothing whatever to prevent the actual percentage going to the ex-Servicemen being considerably greater if, on merits, they get it in the examination?

Sir J. Anderson: I said so in the course of my remarks—that there is nothing whatever to prevent ex-Service candidates getting on merit more than the minimum reservation.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: It is a floor and not a ceiling.

Sir J. Anderson: It is a floor and not a ceiling. It will sustain a man, unless he falls through it, on the ground of not coming up to the requisite standard. I hope I have explained the point that I was seeking to make clear, that this reservation, in the case of the clerical class, where the figure is lowest—it is higher in the other classes—does, in fact, represent the generous treatment that we should all like to see given to the ex-Serviceman.
Before I pass from this question of the preference for Service candidates, I must say one word about women in the Services. It is proposed in the Report that there should be a reservation for Service women, but the suggestion is that, in the case of women who, broadly speaking, have not had denied to them, to the same degree as the men in the Fighting Services, opportunities of preparing themselves for entry by competition into the Civil Service, the principle should be somewhat different. It is proposed that the reservation for women should be determined by the proportion of Service women candidates coming forward, and that they will get their numerical share—by way of reservation—of the vacancies other than those reserved for Servicemen. That is, I think, all.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Might we have an explanation from the right hon. Gentleman of what that means? Do I understand that that applies to each examination as it comes along, or does it cover the whole field?

Sir J. Anderson: That, as I understand it, will be applied to each examination as it comes along, that is to say, the number of vacancies reserved for women will not be determined until experience has shown in what proportion Service

women candidates come forward for the particular competition, and then they will get their proportion. That is how I understand the plan.

Miss Ward: I would like to ask the Chancellor if the whole basis of the argument for differentiation as regards women is based on the fact that they have had sufficient time to study compared with the men in the Fighting Services.

Sir J. Anderson: I am not going to suggest to the House that there is any differentiation against women.

Miss Ward: The treatment of Service women.

Sir J. Anderson: It is not proposed to load the percentage. There is another argument, for what it is worth, and it is that if we tried to apply to women the same kind of formula—not necessarily the same in detail—as is being applied to men, the very small proportion of serving women in the total would make such an a priori reservation seem ridiculous; and it was thought that it would be better, on the whole, in the case of women, if the reservation were made in the manner I have suggested. It will be seen that it will depend entirely on the number of women who come forward, and I do not, prima facie, see any reason for holding that, to make the reservation exactly proportionate to the number of candidates who elect to come forward, represents in any way unfair discrimination.

Miss Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the present proposal is not acceptable to the National Association of Women Civil Servants?

Sir J. Anderson: It is the first time have heard that, and I am sorry to hear it, but perhaps the National Association will be good enough to apply their minds to the considerations I am submitting to the House and to other representations that may be made in the course of the Debate, and I shall be delighted if, in the end, they feel moved to change their view. That is all, I think, that I need say about the features of this plan for special recruitment after the war. I want to say just a word about normal recruitment.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Before my right hon. Friend leaves that point, may I ask, although it is not specifically referred to in the Report, whether there will be correspondence courses so that those in the Services can take full advantage as soon as the scheme is publicly known; or have they started already?

Sir J. Anderson: I do not suppose they have started already, but from what I know of the enterprise of those who conducted such courses before the war, I should be greatly surprised if they did not start up again as soon as they think it worth while. They have never been carried on under Government arrangement, as my hon. Friend knows, but no one need have any apprehension——

Mr. Lindsay: There are 2,000 teachers' courses now.

Sir J. Anderson: Let me come to recruitment. Hon. Members may have observed that there are some special details to be introduced, and one involves the extension, in a downward direction, of the interview which has been a feature of the competition for, I think, the administrative posts. The Committee suggest that that innovation should be treated as experimental. In regard to recruitment to the administrative class, there is another change suggested which may prove to be of much greater significance. Hitherto, recruitment for the administrative class, like recruitment to the other classes of the Civil Service, has been entirely by way of competitive examination on a literary standard. It has often been suggested that an examination of an exacting kind is not, from every point of view, an ideal method of selecting those persons who are going to prove themselves best suited for responsible work in the public service. But no attempt has been made hitherto, so far as the home Civil Service is concerned, to introduce any alternative plan, though in the case of some of the overseas services—the Colonial Services and the Indian Civil Service—a system of what may be called competitive selection for a proportion of vacancies—and in the case of some of the Colonial Services for all the vacancies—has, I believe, been in operation for quite a considerable period, and has given satisfactory results.
The Committee now propose that a plan should be tried by which, side by side with the ordinary written examina-

tion, a proportion of vacancies should be set apart to be filled by what we call competitive selection, by a process of interview and consideration of educational record, and so forth, under the auspices of the Civil Service Commission. I think the suggestion is a good one and that it ought to be tried, but I think that the results should, as the Committee recommend, be reviewed after a comparatively short period, so that we can judge whether this system should be continued.
There are other matters dealt with in the Report on which I do not think I need dwell at any length. There is the question of training, which is a matter that has rightly attracted a good deal of attention of late. It was the subject, I think, of a special Report by a Committee presided over by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General when he was Financial Secretary, and the House was informed that the Government had accepted the recommendations in that Report and were proceeding to put them into effect. It may, perhaps, interest the House to know that the Treasury have selected a director of training and education for the purpose of carrying out the recommendations. The appointment has been offered to, and accepted by, Mr. A. P. Sinker, who is a Fellow and senior tutor of Jesus College, Cambridge. Mr. Sinker is 39 years of age and has been working for the past five years in the Admiralty, where he occupies the position of a temporary Assistant Secretary. He knows the conditions of the Civil Service, and his qualifications for the post are, I think, admirable, and arrangements are being made by which he will be released at once to give practically the whole of his time to the new work on the lines visualised in the Report of the Committee. My right hon. Friend beside me tells me that I was wrong in saying that the special Report was the Report of a Committee presided over by the Postmaster-General. It was, I am told, the late Financial Secretary, the successor of the Postmaster-General in that position—the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Assheton)—who presided over that Committee.
That concludes what I have to say in commending this plan to the favourable consideration of the House. In the process of recovery from the strain and disturbance of war, and for our future well-being, the quality of the Civil


Service of this country will, as I am sure all hon. Members agree, be of first rate importance. In this regard, the matter of recruitment is fundamental, is of prime importance, and I hope the House will agree with me that we are greatly indebted to the National Whitley Council for the sober responsibility and constructive judgment which they have brought to bear on the matters entrusted to them. I think it augurs very well for the future of the Civil Service that it should have evolved so effective a joint body of representatives of the Government, as employers, and of the staffs of all grades, and should have tackled a job of this kind in the spirit and with the results exhibited in this Report.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Mr. W. J. Brown rose——

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: On a point of Order. There is upon the Order Paper an Amendment in my name. May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether it is your intention to call that Amendment?

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. and learned Member for asking that question. I do not propose to call the Amendment, because I have no doubt that the point it raises can be made in the Debate and the Amendment might tend to limit the discussion.

12.44 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I would like to commend the terms of this White Paper to the favourable and cordial attention of the House of Commons, and I want to do that on three main grounds. The first ground is that this is a considered report; the second is that this is a balanced report; and the third is that this is an agreed report. I should like to say something under each of those three heads. I say first that this is a considered Report, and in that respect it presents us with a situation in very marked contrast to the situation which developed at the end of the last war. During that war, as during this war, open and competitive recruitment to the public service was suspended, with the result that very large numbers of vacancies in the established grades accrued during the war period. During the last war, too, as in this, there was a very wide recruitment of temporary staff to cope with the extended work of Government Departments arising out of war conditions.

So that the last war produced features essentially similar to those which have been experienced in the public service during this war. However, there was this very great difference.
In the case of the last war we did not, while the war was on, envisage the Civil Service situation which would have to be dealt with when the war came to an end. Nothing whatever was done by way of arranging to deal with that situation until 1920, when, in great haste, there was set up what was known as the Temporary Staff Committee of the National Whitley Council, which did its best, under pressure, to cope with a problem which should have been tackled some years before. It produced a Report which was accepted by the Government, and on which I will not comment to-day beyond saying that subsequent to that report, every kind of pressure group in the House of Commons got to work. The result was that instead of having a considered plan for dealing with the post-war situation, we had a hastily improvised plan, subsequently battered about from left to right by various pressure groups in the House of Commons, informed and guided from outside.
As a result of that, while I do not want to be unkind to that previous House or to the Treasury, or even to the Service unions, it would not be unfair to say that we achieved a hotch-potch of arrangements decided upon without a clear realisation of the consequences of applying them. The result of that was that for something like 13 years after the last war had ended open and competitive recruitment to the public Service in Britain was almost completely suspended, and there was produced in the public Service a disturbance of the age groups which, the Chancellor will agree, has been a constant liability to the public Service ever since. Indeed, I regret to say that I fear the efficiency of the public Service of those years was adversely affected by the improvised character of the arrangements made at the end of the last war. In the case of this war, we are not waiting until the post-war crisis is upon us before we deal with this problem, and before peace comes we have a considered Report dealing with this very difficult problem of recruitment in the Service after the war. That is the first ground upon which I commend this Report to the House of Commons.
The second ground is that this is a balanced Report. In considering this problem of post-war recruitment in the public Service, there are many interests to be considered. Doubtless some Members of Parliament will be more concerned with this interest than with that, and others still more concerned with another interest, but the Government and the Civil Service trades unions must be concerned not with one interest but all the interests that appear in considering this matter. One interest is the efficiency of the public Service, and on that I should like cordially to endorse what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his closing sentences. As time goes on, the more essential it is that the public Service should be efficient. Some three or four centuries ago, when the functions of the State were very limited, and the size of the Civil Service very small, a simple and uncomplex organisation might satisfy us. But to-day the State touches the life of the individual at every point between the cradle and the grave. As a matter of fact, the State does not wait until we are born before it starts on us; it provides ante-natal clinics before we put in our appearance. And it does not relax its hold on us when we are dead for, after we are dead, we still have to deal with the Inland Revenue Department over which the Chancellor used to preside not so long ago. At every point between the cradle and the grave our lives are touched by the activity of some Government Department or another. When we are born we become the concern of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. At five we become the concern of the Minister of Education. At 14 we become the concern of the Minister of Labour when we go out to work in the world. If we get sick we become the concern of the Minister of Health. If we are unemployed, we go to the Minister of Labour again for unemployment benefit. If we exhaust that benefit, we become the subject of the attentions of the Assistance Board. If we work in a factory, we come under the attention of the Factories Department of the Home Office. If we are bankrupt—a contingency which does occur sometimes—we come under the care of another Department, the Bankruptcy Department of the Board of Trade.
So, at every stage in our life we come under the care of one Government

Department or another and, even when we are dead, there is the Death Duty Department of the Inland Revenue to assess our estate, if any, and if there is any left at the end of that, there is the Public Trustee Department to invest for our dependants and look after them in the capacity of trustee. From before birth until after death we are concerned with some Government Department or another, and the result is that the modern Civil Service has a complexity which is altogether out of proportion to the comparatively simple organisation that would serve the national need at an earlier time. Therefore, efficiency is a consideration we must bear in mind.
A second consideration to be borne in mind is the very proper preference that a country ought to show to those who have fought the battles of the State and the country in this war. There is, however, a third element we have to bear in mind, and that is this, that in this war, whether a man has served in the Army or not, or whether a woman went into the auxiliary Forces, or on to the land or into a factory, the decision has not been within the discretion of the individual. The State has taken charge of us all and to some it has said, "Go into the Army," and to others, "You must not go into the Army, you must do some other form of war-work." In a totalitarian war the gratitude of the State, while it is properly given to the soldiers, ought not to be confined to them. We must have some regard to the rest of the population too.
There is a fourth interest, that of the men and women who have served the community in the Civil Service while the war has been on, and to whom, I submit, we cannot just bid a soldier's farewell at the end of the war and leave it at that. They have an interest which must be properly considered. Then there is a fifth, the interest of the serving permanent Civil Servant, now in the Army it may be, who, but for the war, would have sat for an examination which would have taken him into a higher level of the Civil Service itself—for example the young clerical officer who would have sat for the executive examination; the young clerical assistant who would have sat for the clerical officers' examination; the executive officer who would have sat for the administrative examination. All these have been blocked because of


the suspension of competition, but those men, the bulk of whom will have served in the Army, and the women in the auxiliary Forces, have a right to be taken into account. This Report represents a genuine effort on the part of both sides of the National Whitley Council to take all those elements into account and to do reasonable justice between those half dozen, not hostile, but somewhat divergent claims. That is the second ground upon which I recommend this Report to the favourable attention of the House.
The third ground is that this is an agreed Report. When you have a Civil Service as large as the British service; when you have a half million civil servants represented on the staff side of the National Whitley Council and organised in a very considerable number of different associations and trade unions; when you have on the other side of the Whitley Council a couple of score of heads of Departments, each concerned with the collective interests of the Service, and with the interests of his own Department, to reach an agreement over so wide a field as this and with so many divergent claims to be considered, represents a very considerable achievement indeed. If this document had been drafted solely by the trades unions of the public service, it would not be in the form in which it comes to the House to-day. If it had been drafted solely by the Establishments Division of the Treasury, again I do not think it would have appeared in quite the form that it does to-day. It comes before us as an agreed document, and I am authorised to say on behalf of the Civil Service unions—with two exceptions with which I will deal in a moment—that the trades unions of the Service will accept and co-operate in the working out of this document provided the Government keeps to the document on its side. We are prepared to accept and work this thing and try to make a success of it.

Mr. Hutchinson: Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the House whether he means by that that the unions expect the Government to carry out this scheme in all its details as presented in the Report, and will exclude any possibility of modification of any of its proposals?

Mr. Brown: I welcome the interruption of the hon. and learned Member. He is

concerned, as the Amendment on the Order Paper in his name indicates, to get the maximum preference for ex-Service men, and I have no doubt that when he comes to speak later—as he probably will if he catches your eye, Sir—he will be urging that on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I start from the view that I want to see every legitimate preference given to ex-Service men, but I say with equal emphasis that they are not the only class to be considered in looking at this Report, and that these other factors of war workers in other spheres, of civil servants now serving temporarily in the Forces, of the educational and efficiency needs of the Service must all be taken into account and, doing this, the unions and the Government agree in recommending the proposals in this White Paper for the acceptance of the House of Commons.

Mr. Hutchinson: Without modification?

Mr. Brown: We think we have the best set-up we can get, and we are afraid that if the hon. and leaned Member presses for the alteration of this document in this respect, then other interests will start pressing to alter it in other respects. Let me give a case in point. Take the temporary civil servants, who do not get a large number of vacancies under this scheme. Those men are members of the unions sitting on the staff side of the National Whitley Council, and if we had paid regard only to that particular interest, the unions would have pressed for a much bigger percentage to be given to those men. They have not done so because they have been prepared to give very great weight to the point of view which my hon. and learned Friend represents in this House, but if he tries to push the Government or the unions further along that path, then equally great difficulties will be created in other directions.
All the unions concerned, with two exceptions to which I will refer in a moment, endorse these proposals. One exception is the National Association of Women Civil Servants, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall (Miss Ward) referred. I would not wish to say anything disrespectful about that organisation, but I think the House should be informed that its title is very misleading, because it suggests that all women civil servants are members of that organisation. Actually, its membership is 3,000 out


of a total of over 130,000 women civil servants, and it has no representative character for women in the Civil Service as a whole. The second exception is a body called the Association of ex-Service Civil Servants, whose title is as misleading as the title of the association I referred to a moment or two ago. There are about 140,000 ex-Service men in the Civil Service, and of that number fewer than 4,000 are represented by that Association——

Mr. Hutchinson: I did not refer to it.

Mr. Brown: I beg the hon. and learned Member's pardon; I should not have imputed that he did. That was an error, and I withdraw. However, it may be referred to. The overwhelming bulk of men in the Civil Service are in the ordinary trade unions of the Civil Service, and, similarly, the overwhelming majority of ex-Service men in the public service are organised in the appropriate trade unions.

Miss Ward: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that there are no women represented on the staff side?

Mr. Brown: On the contrary.

Miss Ward: On the negotiating body?

Mr. Brown: Not only do I not accept that, but I explicitly, purposely, and even vehemently, repudiate it.

Mr. A. Edwards: Be more vehement.

Mr. Brown: Take the organisation I know best, the Civil Service Clerical Association. It has 40 per cent. women and 60 per cent. men. In war-time it is nearer "fifty-fifty." The women express themselves in proportion to their number—in some cases in greater proportion—in determining the policy of the Association. The idea that they are not represented on the staff side is quite wrong——

Miss Ward: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. No women actually signed the Report.

Mr. Brown: That may be, but the point is that whether the signatories are men or women they were signing on behalf of organisations which include men and women, and which include the overwhelming majority of the men and women in the Civil Service. Those organisations include 95 per cent. of the

ex-Service men and the women in the entire Service.
I do not intend, however, to make a speech on the details of this White Paper. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has relieved me of the necessity for doing that, because he has covered effectively its proposals, which I want heartily to commend to the notice and acceptance of this House. I know that we are all subjected to various influences and pressures from different quarters, and that the House of Commons must reflect, to a degree, the differences of opinion and interests outside—I make no complaint about that—but I would like to emphasise to the House that this is an agreed settlement. If we seek substantially to alter it, in one direction or another, we shall evoke counter-pressures which may have the effect of throwing the whole thing into the melting pot. If the Chancellor says something on his own he may or may not be right. If I say something on my own I am almost bound to be right. But if we both say the same thing at the same time, then the House has 100 per cent. assurance, that if they take our joint advice, they will be doing the right thing.

1.5 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: On previous occasions when the House has been invited to give its approval to a White Paper containing a statement of Government policy it has usually been the case that the White Paper was to be followed by legislation and that the House would, therefore, have a subsequent opportunity of considering the details of the proposals which were contained in that White Paper. But in the case of this White Paper that is not so. This White Paper contains a scheme, complete in all its details, for which the approval of the House is sought. I hope that my right hon. Friend does not expect the House to accept all the details of this proposed scheme if we agree to the Motion to-day, and I trust that the Financial Secretary, when he comes to reply to the Debate, will be able to assure us that what the Government are seeking is the approval of the House for the general framework of this scheme, and that if as the result of consideration of the different points of view which will no doubt be expressed in this Debate they are satisfied that modifications—not of the structure, but of the details—are desirable in order


to meet those views the Chancellor will regard himself as free to introduce into this scheme such modifications as may appear in those circumstances to be necessary. I hope that the Financial Secretary may be able to assure us that the procedure which was adopted in a somewhat similar case, when the question of Service pay and allowances was debated in this House, on a White Paper, when Members were invited to discuss with the Government the modifications which they thought were needed, will be followed again.
It was, in my judgment, not altogether a fortunate thing that the Chancellor should have selected a body constituted as this Committee of the National Whitley Council is constituted, as the most suitable body to make recommendations on this subject. This Committee—and I make no complaint of this—is a body which is representative solely of Civil Service interests; it has no direct contact with influences outside the Civil Service. As I hope to be able to show in a few moments, the result of that has been to exercise a limiting and restrictive influence over the Report which they have made. I desire to join with my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) in acknowledging the services which this Committee have rendered. But at the same time I desire to qualify that acknowledgement by drawing attention to the fact that this Committee was a body which necessarily had a very restricted outlook, which limited the approach that they made to this important and vital question of recruitment to the Civil Service. It is unfortunate that there was not on this body some representative of the interests to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby referred. I do not propose to join with him in issues as to the representative character or otherwise of the two bodies which he mentioned. I did not introduce a reference to them in this Debate, and I do not propose to pursue the matter further except to say that I think that it was unfortunate that there was on this Committee nobody who could claim to be a representative of Service or ex-Service interests——

Mr. Brown: I am sorry, but that is not true. Among my own class, for instance, who served in the last war, 94 per cent. of those civil servants were in the Armed Forces. But that did not prevent

them being members of their ordinary trade unions, and it ought to prevent any suggestion that the ordinary trade unions are not representative of the point of view of ex-Servicemen or women.

Mr. Hutchinson: My hon. Friend introduced this topic; had he not done so I should not have referred to it.

Mr. Brown: No, it was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward).

Mr. Hutchinson: I do not propose to dispute whether any particular organisation is representative of any particular interest or not. All I intend to do is to say that I think it is unfortunate that there was nobody who was solely representative of ex-Service interests who was a member of the Committee which has produced this Report.
Demobilisation of the Armed Forces presents the Civil Service with an exceptional opportunity to obtain recruits of proved ability, and of much wider experience than those who normally enter the Service. This White Paper gives no indication that this Committee have so much as appreciated that that opportunity exists. They have approached their subject solely from the standpoint of considering how best they are to make good to those who might have had an opportunity to enter the Civil Service through the normal channels had it not been for their service in the Armed Forces, the opportunity which has been lost. I acknowledge that their proposals, restricted to that limited purpose alone, are ingenious and will go a long way towards making good those lost opportunities. But the point I make is that that in itself is not sufficient. Here is an opportunity to bring into the Service young men and women who have had an exceptional training and an exceptional opportunity to require precisely that breadth of outlook and experience which, it is sometimes said, is lacking in the normal Civil Service recruit. I should have thought that this Committee would have welcomed that opportunity and would have made proposals which would take full advantage of this exceptional source of recruitment. I do not say that on that ground alone we should reject the general framework of this scheme; but I intend later to indicate one or two directions in which, in my judgment, modifications of these proposals would have the


effect of remedying what I regard as a fundamental defect in the proposals in this White Paper.
In recent years the opinion has been gaining ground that the traditional methods of recruitment for the Civil Service are not producing recruits of the experience and vision which the modern conditions under which the Service operates demand. I cannot express those reasons better than they were expressed in the following passage from a recent Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure.
The great majority of civil servants are recruited at an age before they have been brought into contact with the complicated realities of the outside world and without any practical training for the work that lies before them.
The Committee then proceeded to make recommendations for training which led to the appointment of the Departmental Committee to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already referred. The system of recruiting direct from school or from the university has been responsible to a very large extent for that limitation of outlook which the critics of the Civil Service have detected in the normal Civil Service personnel. Here is an opportunity provided by the war to obtain recruits whose training, experience and outlook are very different from those of the normal boy entering from school or entering the higher grade direct from a university. It seems to me to be a pity that no greater attempt is made in this report to take advantage of that new material which the war has suddenly and unexpectedly presented to the public service. These young men and women who will be leaving the Armed Forces have been serving for five years under very exacting conditions. They have had an elaborate training. Much is known of their capabilities. They have been selected for the work they are doing—in the Army at any rate—by the most elaborate modern methods of selection. It may have been true to say after the last war that five years' service in a waterlogged trench was not in itself a qualification for a post in a Government office; but that criticism to-day is completely without foundation. These young people are working a highly complex administrative machine. Many of them have had training of a high order in administrative work and I should have thought that the

ability they have shown and the experience they have gained in carrying our Arms victoriously upon every battlefield in Europe would be an excellent qualification for employment in the public service when the war comes to an end.

Mr. Brown: They get 75 per cent. of the administrative vacancies.

Mr. Hutchinson: I come now to the proposals in the White Paper, and I desire to put forward certain suggestions for their modification. I do not ask my right hon. Friend to accept or to reject them but I hope he will feel able to say that consideration shall be given to them in conjunction with hon. Members who will express different points of view to-day and, I hope, with representative organisations which claim to speak on behalf of men and women serving in the Forces.
I take first of all the suggested age limit for candidates at the reconstruction examinations. The Committee propose to take the normal age of entry to the particular branch of the Service and add to it a period of six years. In that way they claim to restore to those who have lost the opportunity of competition a chance to make good that opportunity. If the upper age limits are to be fixed as low as that, it must necessarily involve that large numbers of young men and women who possess special ability and are particularly suitable for service in the Civil Service will necessarily be excluded because they are a few years above the limit. No doubt there is a limit of age beyond which a man cannot usefully enter a new occupation; but that limit certainly is not 24 for the executive and clerical grades, and it is certainly not 30 for the administrative grade. I ask my right hon. Friend to consider very seriously whether this upper age limit ought not to be extended so as to bring in every candidate who may be suitable. The Committee themselves recognise that, if those limits are fixed at the levels that are proposed, they will be excluding a very large number of suitable candidates. Therefore they themselves introduce a modification by providing that one-fifth of the candidates may actually be in a higher age group. It is proposed, for example, in the clerical grade, where the upper age limit is the lowest, that one-fifth of the candidates may be between 24 and 30. That in itself is evidence that the Committee recognise that the age


limits are generally fixed too low and that they will inevitably exclude a large number of suitable candidates.
My right hon. Friend explained how the proportion of what are called reserved places is to be fixed and claimed that there were outside the Armed Forces a number of young men, and I suppose young women, in these age groups for whom certain places ought to be available. In the clerical grade the estimated number of successful male entrants, on the pre-war figures, is stated to be 62 per cent., and it is proposed that 50 per cent. of the total number of places in that class shall be reserved for male ex-Service candidates. I cannot imagine what type of candidate is going to fill the places which are represented by the difference between 50 and 62. My right hon. Friend referred to those who had been directed to industry. It has not been my experience that a very large number of fit young men in the age group 18 to 24 have been directed to industry. Then he said there were a number of persons who were not physically fit. Standards of physical fitness have had to be reduced for the Armed Forces and I should have thought that a man who was not physically fit for service in the Armed Forces is not likely to be able to pass the physical examinations which are required for the Civil Service. Therefore I would ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether this proposed reservation of places ought not to be extended to a figure much nearer the estimated number of male entrants who would go into the Service in normal years.
It is proposed that the lower age limit should be fixed at the normal age for entry into each class. That means to say that, concurrently with the ex-Service and other candidates who will compete in these reconstruction competitions, you would have a certain number of boys and girls coming straight from school or from the university and competing with the others. That seems to be a provision which is altogether unnecessary. I can see no reason why a young man or woman coming from school or university at the normal age should be a competitor in a reconstruction competition at all. It may be that that is not the intention of the scheme, but I should like some assurance that the lower age limit for competitors for the reserved vacancies, which will be

filled as a result of those reconstruction competitions, will be fixed at an age not below the Service age limit for the Armed Forces. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give us an assurance that that matter will also be considered.
I come now to the question of competitions for the normal vacancies. It is proposed that these should commence concurrently with the competitions for the approved vacancies. Here, again, I can see no reason why normal recruitment for the Civil Service should commence at the same time as the recruitment by means of the reconstruction examination. Having regard to the fact that there are available for recruitment to the Civil Service a large number of Service recruits of a very special type, possessing just that experience and breadth of vision which critics of the Civil Service have said is lacking in the Service, and having regard to the fact that we shall have for a short time that particular type of recruit available, the normal recruitment for the Service ought to be postponed until such time as suitably and specially qualified ex-Service candidates cease to be available. I ask my right hon. Friend to consider this matter too.
I come now to my final point, and I would submit it to the House as perhaps the most important criticism of the White Paper. There are in the Services to-day many young men, and, I expect, many young women, who have risen during the war to positions of administrative responsibility. Many of them have risen from the lower ranks in the Services and are holding posts which call for administrative knowledge and capabilities. I would take as an instance, in the higher classes, a young man who has passed through the course at a War Staff College and is holding an administrative post, perhaps at the War Office, at an Army headquarters, at a formation headquarters or elsewhere. There are many such young men who started their career in the Army at the outset of this war as non-commissioned officers, or even as private soldiers, many of them serving in the ranks of the Regular Army before the war. In the war they have received commissioned rank, they have been trained at the War Staff Colleges, and they have been appointed to positions in which they are doing work of identical character to the work which they would be required to


do in the Civil Service. If you take the clerical grade of the Service, there are to-day men serving, for example, as staff sergeants in the Royal Army Service Corps, as staff sergeants and conductors in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, as artillery clerks and so forth. All these men are doing responsible clerical and administrative work very similar to the work they would be required to do in the Civil Service. This Report makes no provision for the entry into the Civil Service of these men if they do not happen to possess the educational qualifications which are laid down as the condition for the Civil Service.
There is certainly in the White Paper a provision for special entry of ex-Service candidates of this class who are serving as temporary civil servants. But is it reasonable to say to a young man of proved ability in the class to which I have just referred, that the only channel by which he can enter the Civil Service is to serve first as a temporary in the hope that later on he will be chosen for an established post? If that is made a condition, these young men, quite naturally, will not be inclined to enter the Civil Service at all, and the opportunity of securing them for the public service will be entirely lost. I invite my right hon. Friend to consider whether there ought not to be some provision for special entry of the class of persons to whom I have referred, and I suggest that the qualification should be by interview and recommendation from a departmental board upon which the Service in which they have served is represented. I invite my right hon. Friend to consider whether some provision ought not to be made for the special entry of those who possess the exceptional qualifications and experience to which I have alluded.
In conclusion I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby in acknowledging the comprehensive character of this Report; but I am sure that it is not a report which will command the complete confidence of the public or of the Services unless it is modified along the lines I have suggested.

1.37 p.m.

Mr. Reakes: I rise to support the admirable speech made by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), who, with his usual ability and

clarity, has proved that the Report which we are now considering is a good one. I am not sure, however, after the Report has been submitted to such a microscopical examination as that given to it by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson), that there are not points in it which merit consideration. I want to say a word in support of the temporary civil servant. I regard the temporary civil servants who have been recruited during the war, as having added brightness and colour to what was a colourless profession. They have raised the standard of experience of life in the Government service and, in fact, have humanised the permanent Civil Service. Unquestionably, they have rendered a tremendous service to the war effort. For that reason, I hope that the claims of the temporary civil servant will be taken into account when the war is over. What I have said applies to all branches of the Service, where temporary civil servants have been recruited, but I want to make special mention of the Postal and Telegraph Censorship, of which I was a member for two and a half years as a temporary servant. It has been hiding its light under a bushel in Liverpool for five years, and it is undoubtedly the Cinderella of the Ministry of Information.
We hear a lot about temporary civil servants in other Ministries, but we have never yet heard in this House much about the branch to whch I have referred. In that body are a large number of men and women of extraordinary experience. I make bold to say that if their collective wisdom and experience could be stated in words, it would stagger the House. I have never known such a wonderful collection of individuals as those who have been doing this drab, dreary work since the outbreak of the war, not only in Liverpool, but in London and other parts. There are among them wonderful linguists and experts on shipping, cotton and a hundred and one other professions, trades and industries. I claim for this branch of the Service that it has cost the country nothing, because, in locating information for our Armed Forces and the Ministry of Home Security, and in locating dollar securities in the United States and bringing them to light for the benefit of the Treasury, it has more than earned its keep. I should be sorry to see the men and women in this Department turned adrift instead of being brought into the Service when the war is over.
It would be a good idea to create a wing of temporary civil servants attached to the main body. We would be able to utilise their individual experiences and the knowledge they have gained during the war while rendering service to the State, and bring these qualities to bear upon the solution of the problems that will arise after the war. I am aware that there may be far too many competitors for the positions, but that situation can be eased by asking men at the top to vacate their positions at an earlier age. I would like to see the age of retirement reduced. We know that there are in public positions, men who cling to office like ivy to an aged wall, and who will serve, if possible, until their usefulness to the State is brought into question. I support the hon. Member for Rugby and I express the hope that some regard will be paid to the criticisms made of the scheme by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford.

1.45 p.m.

Major Neven-Spence: The hon. Member who has just spoken made a very strong plea on behalf of the temporary civil servant. I have a rather uncomfortable feeling at the back of my mind that he was really inviting us to repeat the very serious blunders we made in regard to the Civil Service after the last war. The unplanned recruitment that took place then did the Civil Service an immense amount of harm. I am glad to see on page 6 of the White Paper a statement in the following terms, concerning one of the most important points involved:
All who have been familiar with the Civil Service in the inter-war years, and during this war, are deeply conscious of the unhappy effects of unplanned recruitment immediately after the last war, and of the failure to maintain sufficiently high standards of qualification.
There is only one way to avoid repetition of that mistake, and that is to revive at the earliest possible moment the system of entry by competitive examination, as soon as sufficient candidates become available from the Service, from the war industries and from other occupations in civil life—which of course cannot be until the end of the war with Germany. I would like to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) whether there is not overlooked what I believe to have been another and equally

important mistake that was made after the last war. It was a grave mistake and had in the end a disastrous consequence, for which, in the long run, the country had to pay very dearly, and that was the economy campaign. Hon. Members will recollect that economy became a sort of battle-cry and that a Minister was appointed with an axe. The newspapers went into top gear with screaming headlines about over-stiffing in Government Departments. The axe fell and it fell with particular fury on the Civil, Naval and Military Services.
I submit that those Services, all of which are of such vital importance to the country, ought not to be subjected to sudden changes of policy, which might upset the whole structure of the Service, perhaps largely dictated by a hysterical attitude of mind of the Government; and, in any case, the very last Service in which we ought to sacrifice efficiency on the altar of economy is our Civil Service. No-one will dispute the need for planned recruitment in the post-war period, but I hope, when the day does come, as it certainly will at some stage after this war, when there will have to be some retrenchment, that if there is to be any cutting dawn of the established Civil Service, it will be done by judicious pruning and cutting out the dead wood, rather than by the sort of mass execution that took place after the last war.
Like other hon. Members, I welcome the generous prospect which the White Paper holds out to the ex-Service man. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson), who can always be relied upon to speak very warmly on behalf of the ex-Serviceman, certainly had our sympathy. I am not sure that we should all be prepared to go quite so far as he is prepared to go. I, personally, also welcome the reservation made in favour of other members of the community who have also played their part in the war effort, and who, because of that, have lost the chance they would normally have had of entering the Civil Service. Everyone will, I think, also welcome the indication in this White Paper that entry into the Civil Service is to be subject to the possession of the necessary qualifications and to proof of suitability for the post. Those are very important points, because the Civil Service must at all times strive to maintain its reputation with the country. Only by


its reputation will it continue to attract into its fold the right type of people. The nation has a very strong interest in maintaining the efficiency of its Civil Service at the very highest possible level.
I want to say a few words now on the relationship between the general public and the Civil Service. The other day, when sympathising with Great Britain over her woes, the Prime Minister used words which, it seemed to me, could, with a very slight change, be applied with peculiar force to our Civil Service. Very slightly amended, the words would read as follows:
Poor old civil servants. They have to assume the burden of the most thankless tasks, scoffed at, abused and criticised from every quarter.
They are fair game for the comedian, for the popular Press and for writers of letters to "The Times" and, I blush to say, even for Members of Parliament. What is the verdict of those who are in the best position to judge in this matter, those who come into the closest contact with the Civil Service? They say, as Sir Walter Layton said recently, that the ranks of the Civil Service teem with men who have absolutely first-class brains. They say, as Ministers have so often said in this House, that our Civil Service is staffed by men actuated by the highest sense of duty to the community, and of a standard of integrity rarely equalled and nowhere surpassed. Those are highly complimentary words, which I believe to be absolutely true.
We may ask ourselves, then, whence comes this conflict of opinion between those who on the one hand are really in a position to judge, and, on the other hand, members of the general public? My own belief is that it largely arises at that level, at which the general public come into contact with the Civil Service, that is to say across the counter, in one branch of the Civil Service or another. Everybody has had an unfortunate experience of that kind, and the blame is by no means always with the civil servant, but sometimes it is. The pity of it is that one unfortunate experience of that kind may make the member of the public who has undergone it a walking advertisement against the Civil Service, as a whole, and can do an amount of harm to the reputation of the Service out of all proportion to the magnitude of

the unfortunate experience which he has had.
This is a matter to which the clerical grades might perhaps give some careful consideration. I think they might ask themselves whether it is better to have their Service abused and criticised, as it sometimes is by the Press and the public, because of the damaging effect on the public mind caused by the unsuitability of the odd individual, or whether the interests of the Service and its credit in the public mind, would not be strengthened if the permanence of these jobs were made rather less automatic than is now the case and more subject to the test of efficiency. It certainly will not be possible to recruit the right people, and get the best out of them when recruited, unless the reputation of the Civil Service is maintained at the highest possible level. In this connection it might be worth while for the Government to give consideration to the question whether conditions of pay, service and pension of the lowest grades of the Service are really such as to attract the right type of candidate.
Now I pass to the subject of the administrative grades, and I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether it is proposed to adhere rigidly to the figures laid down in the White Paper. I think some other hon. Member asked that question. I would suggest very humbly, especially concerning the administrative grades, that we should not adhere too rigidly to the proportion of vacancies available for reconstruction competition as stated on page 4 of the White Paper. I suggest that this should be subject to alteration in the light of experience. It is most important that the reservations should not be too high, especially in the administrative grades, because the administrative grade is the cream of the Civil Service. These are the men who have to advise Ministers and who plan reforms. We have had many examples of their planning work in the spate of White Papers which have descended on us in recent months. The work of composition of those White Papers, as Lord Winslow said the other day in a Sunday paper, is extremely expert. They are the men who frame the Bills. They are the architects of the administrative structure. Theirs is a task of very great responsibility, far greater in many cases than that of the heads of the biggest businesses


and largest public utility undertakings in this country.
In winning the peace, these men will have a vital part to play, just as vital as they played and are playing in helping us to win the war. It is not so long since that they were complimented on the very great effort they have made in regard to the war. Compare the salaries of these men with the salaries that are paid in the biggest businesses. There is no comparison possible. Are we quite sure that the salaries and conditions of service that we offer are such as will continue to attract into the Service the very highest type of man we want and must have for these responsible posts? It is not enough for us to say that a sufficient number of candidates is forthcoming; what we want to be able to say is that we have the very best candidates that are available. Efficiency must be the criterion and the guiding principle, but efficiency does not depend solely on the method of recruitment, or even on the method of recruitment plus training. There are other factors which come into the question. I note with satisfaction from page 5 of the White Paper that the Government are examining the question of whether the existing superannuation arrangements are sufficiently flexible. To take an example; it is surely all wrong that full pension can be earned only after 40 years of service and that no one in the administrative grades can earn a full pension because no one can join until the age of 21; most of them join when they are about 23, and the retiring age is 60.
I referred a few moments ago, in connection with the clerical grades, to the question whether absolute security of tenure was in the best interests of the Service. I want to look at that question in connection with the administrative grades. Why not, since conditions of service are being examined at the preset time, consider whether security of tenure in its present application to administrative posts in the Civil Service, should not be abandoned in favour of a system under which the highest rewards would go to the best men, and, on the other hand, the least efficient would be got rid of? Then again why should the Civil Service not have widows' and orphans' pensions as well as superannuation allowances. There are other questions which have a bearing on recruit-

ment. In connection with the administrative class, I have one more point to make. It is no use having the best brains at the top of the Civil Service unless the men who are at the top get time to use them. It is well known that the Civil Service administrative staff work extremely long hours at very high speed, under great pressure, and there are many people who come into contact with them who think it would be greatly to the public advantage if we saw to it that there are enough of them at the top, so that their leaders will have time to think.
My last point, on the subject of selection, is this: I notice that the Whitley Council Committee recommend that the reconstruction competitions should consist of written examinations plus an interview. That is quite a sound condition, but it crosses my mind whether the time has not come to take a step forward. Modern methods have been introduced into the Army. They have developed a special technique, in the War Office Selection Board, for recruiting officers for the Army, and the work they have done is pioneer work which has been outstandingly successful, because no one can get a commission in the Fighting Forces unless he has been found to possess all the qualities necessary to the making of a good officer. I ask whether the time has not come to apply a similar test in recruiting officers for the Civil Service to ensure that no one is taken into the Service who is not in every way qualified to be a good officer in that Service? In that way I think we will probably get rid of many of the complaints with which we have all been familiar in the past.

2.3 p.m.

Miss Ward: It is very regrettable that this White Paper should have apparently attracted so little interest on the part of the House of Commons generally, because I am quite certain we are all agreed that an efficient Civil Service for the future is absolutely vital to the best interests of this country. I would like to reinforce something that was said by my hon. and gallant Friend who has just spoken, with regard to general conditions and pay of the Civil Service. I think it most important that proper, adequate and generous salaries should be paid, and I have always viewed with very grave regret what I consider to be the deplorably low salaries paid to the higher grades


of the Civil Service. I suppose the Chancellor of the Exchequer finds a little difficulty in coming to the House of Commons and arguing the case of his own Service, but I think it is imperative that we should see that these men and women, who have served this country so loyally, are adequately, properly and generously remunerated, and I hope it will not be very long before we see a real improvement in this direction.
I wish particularly to deal with one point which has been touched on by one or two speakers, with regard to the provision made for ex-Service women in the White Paper. I do not want to get into any real controversy, but I think that the views of the National Association of Women Civil Servants should be placed on record. I would like to say, in general, that I think that the best way we can serve the interests of the Service men and women in the future is to provide for them, as well as for the community as a whole, the very best Civil Service possible. It is of course very difficult to follow all the percentages which were argued by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I am quite certain that by attracting to the Civil Service the best brains this country can provide, we shall serve the best interests of the community as a whole. But with regard to the position of the ex-Service women, as touched on in the White Paper, this is the resolution which has been passed by the National Association of Women Civil Servants:
That this Committee oppose the adoption of the recommendation that the allocation of vacancies in the Civil Service for ex-Service men and women should be determined by different principles in the case of the men and the women, the allocations for men being based on the number of vacancies and the allocations for women being based on the number of candidates. The Committee regards this proposal as a serious departure from the principle of equal admission to the Civil Service which was laid down by Parliament and has been in force since 1925. After full consideration of the reasons alleged for the proposal, the Joint Committee recommend that whatever the percentage of vacancies it is decided to reserve for ex-Service admissions to the various grades, these vacancies should be open equally for competition between ex-Service men and ex-Service women.
I would be very grateful if my right hon. Friend will explain in what way, by including in this White Paper this departure from principle, he thinks the interests of the fighting men and of the

ex-Servicemen and women are really being protected. I know that, as the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) has said, these proposals have been agreed by the Civil Service bodies which I gather he represents in this House of Commons, but as this House also stands for the protection of minorities, I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend could go a little further into the details of why this decision has been taken. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor did give two reasons, one on his own initiative and one stimulated by an interruption from me. With regard to the reason he himself advocated, which was that Service women generally had had more opportunity for study than Servicemen, I am not disagreeing with him on that point, but there are a vast number of Servicemen who have been doing what I might call sedentary jobs. There are men who have been in the Pay Corps, men who are in the Air Ministry, the Admiralty and the War Office, and the whole body of Servicemen have been included in the special provision laid down in the White Paper for their admission to the Civil Service in the future.
I can quite see, on the Chancellor's own explanation, a point for a differentiation, if it had been made as between men in the active Fighting Services in the field, and the men and women who have been employed, so to speak, servicing the men in the field. I understand it takes 10 men and women to service one fighting man. But that differentiation has not been made in the White Paper. I could not help feeling when my right hon. Friend was emphasising that particular point that women had had more chance of study than men, that it was a very curious reason on which to hang this very big departure from the principle which was previously laid down in 1925, and I should be very grateful if my right hon. Friend could give a little more detail on this point.
The point which my right hon. Friend made in reply to my question, that in fact there would be so very few ex-Service women entering the Civil Service that they had not been included in the general arrangements, I do not think is really a valid argument, because if the women would have preferred to have been treated on terms of equality, I think it is an unusual departure to have the Treasury protecting the interests of


women in this way. I sometimes find in relation to women's questions, that Ministers think they are protecting the interests of women when they insist on bringing forward their own proposals, based on advice which has been tended to them, very often by men, rather than protecting the interests of women in the way women themselves would like their interests protected. It is a very curious feature of Government administration that Ministers are always so certain that they themselves are protecting the interests of women, when in fact their protection does not conform with the views of women themselves. At any rate, I should be very grateful for a little more information on this point, and I know that the National Association of Women Civil Servants would be grateful too.
In conclusion, I wish to say how much I welcome the Chancellor's statement about the appointment of Mr. Sinker. As a member of the Committee on National Expenditure, I thought, quite naturally, that their Report in the 1941–2 Session on the organisation of the Civil Service was admirable. I think some extremely interesting and profitable suggestions were put forward in that Report, and I know that following on the publication of that Report a committee was set up under my right hon. Friend's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Assheton), and I am very glad that, arising out of that committee, Mr. Sinker should be appointed. It is absolutely vital that we should bring the organisation of our Civil Service up-to-date and in step with all the most modern lines of development in business organisations. Therefore, I hope that the operation of the proposals of the Committee of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe will not be long delayed.
I would like to make this comment, returning to my very great regret that this White Paper has attracted so little attention in the House of Commons. It seems to me that we show very small interest in the machinery of Government as a whole. We have very full Houses and stimulating and vigorous Debates on a wide number of questions, relating to social reform, to foreign policy, to industry and the export trade. Surely, it is fundamental to the success of this country, in future, that our machinery of Government should be as up-to-date and as all-

embracing as it is possible to make it. I am tremendously surprised that we never take the opportunity of debating that machinery as it was debated yesterday, and as it has been debated from time to time during the war years, in another place. It is absolutely vital that our machinery should be in good trim and in first-class working order. I have nothing more to say, except to welcome the proposals in the White Paper, and to hope that the conditions of the Civil Service will be improved at the earliest possible moment.

2.13 p.m.

Mr. Mack: I suffer from the disadvantage—although perhaps it is not altogether a disadvantage—of not having been connected, directly or indirectly, with the Civil Service, but, in common with many other Members, I have had an opportunity of coming into contact with a great number of civil servants. I am glad that the general trend of the Debate has been to pay a well-deserved tribute to a body of public servants who, in the main, have served this country well and loyally. Personally, the Civil Service is about the last career I would ever have wanted to follow. I said to one civil servant, "You seem to be cramped of all initiative, to be settled in some small Government Department, under the control of superiors whose only qualification has been years of docility and tacit acquiescence to the powers that be; and you enjoy very little opportunity of political expression." The civil servant, who was quite a sagacious man, and, unfortunately, had been put into this type of work by a somewhat zealous father, said, "I was advised to go in for an examination at a comparatively early age, and, unfortunately, passed it, and thus found myself a civil servant." I said, "What qualifications are required?" He said, "Firstly, loyalty, which means blind obedience; secondly, patience, because your hair will be tinged with silver before you get promotion, particularly if one has a spirit of defiance against reaction; and, thirdly, one must bow the knee to mediocrity, which one finds everywhere in the Civil Service."
I never had the advantage of a university education, but apparently promotion in the Civil Service depends upon the success achieved in university examinations. I once had an opportunity very


early in this war, however, of being examined by civil servants when applying for a commission in the Royal Air Force, on the administrative side. I was taken into a room in a building in Kingsway, before a semi-circle of very imposing individuals some wearing gold braid, and one other, who, presumably was a civil servant. They questioned me about my educational qualifications, and I had to fill up a form, stating where I was born, who were my father and mother, and where they were born, if I was of true European descent, what schools I had been educated at, of what clubs I was a member, what particular subjects I had qualified in, and what examinations, if any, I had failed in. I was also asked to give the names of distinguished people in various walks of life who could vouch for my capacity, educational qualifications, and general good character.
I was sufficiently enthusiastic to want to succeed, and obtained a number of imposing signatures on my application form. I was full of vim, vigour, and vitality, pep, and punch, zeal and zip. At any rate, thus armed, I failed to convince them that I was a suitable candidate. I was asked—and this shows what the Civil Service have to put up with—if I could speak French. I said, in somewhat low tones, that I could. Then I was asked about the populations of various countries, and how I would go if I took a journey from Warsaw to Vladivostock. I answered that question in a way which led them to think that I had been over that journey—which was not the case. Then I was hurtled across the road, to have my ears and my eyes examined, together with my medical history, and that of my grandparents, who in one or two instances, I understand, reached the ripe age of 90 or 100. I passed all these tests. Thirteen weeks and four days later a communication arrived, saying they thanked me very much for my patriotic offer to help, but had to refuse the application, and that it was useless endeavouring to ascertain the reasons why I had been refused, as no correspondence on the matter could be entered into. That was the type of man I encountered on my only visit, and I shudder to think what happens to a man of zeal and energy if he entered the Civil Service. No wonder it has been the butt and target for comedians.
I hope that there will be a bigger recruitment of women in the Civil Service, because women have many of the qualities which, I regret to say, are sadly lacking in men; and they would do much to improve the quality of the Service. The Government may have large nationalisation schemes for the future. I do not want to prognosticate, unduly, but if another type of Government came into power, perhaps there would be a shifting of the administration, and other Ministries might arise, requiring a different type of civil servant, or, at any rate, a civil servant with a different mentality. I am told that a very large proportion of those people who constitute, for example, the Foreign Office are the products of Eton, Harrow and some of the public schools. It is not amazing that the products of those schools, in the main, have a certain political outlook. That may well account for the policy which the Foreign Office has pursued. I would like to know to what extent—if, indeed, it would be admitted—political influence operates in the allocation of the higher posts which are given to civil servants.

Sir Granville Gibson: Would the hon. Gentleman deny that there are hon. and right hon. Members sitting on those benches whose sons have gone to Eton and Harrow?

Mr. Mack: I know there are many working men who, in the literal sense, have gone through the buildings, and have come out at the other end. But the vast majority of the working class never get a chance to go to Eton and Harrow, good though those institutions may be. With a proper society, it ought to be possible for any working boy, if he has the ability and skill——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): This discussion on the public schools is out of Order. It ought to have been reserved for the Education Bill.

Mr. Mack: I am very glad you have succoured me, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It ought to be possible for typical working men and women to get into the Civil Service, and to get promotion. But unless better facilities are afforded for them to obtain the educational qualifications which are necessary, we shall still have in the Civil Service a type of individual who may be called, from our point of view, reactionary in outlook and mentality.


That is one of the things we are going to keep on saying until we have remedied what we believe to be a one-sided system of recruitment.
I was pleased to note that, on this question of recruitment, due regard will be paid to those splendid men and women who have served us well in the Forces. I am glad that the Government are alive to that point, because we must never have it said that we failed to appreciate those services, and that individuals who have spent four, five, or even six years of the most impressionable and vital period of their lives in the Forces were denied the amplest opportunity of entering the Civil Service after the war. I have not gone into the question of remuneration in detail, but I feel that the whole question of improving their standard of life should be investigated. The Civil Service, after all, is a buttress to a Government, and in its corporate capacity helps to render smooth the multifarious plans which Governments bring into being; and moreover it is of great importance to the detailed administration of this country. It is essential that the men and women in that Service should be adequately paid, and given a certain dignity so far as their remuneration is concerned.
If that is done, I believe that it will open the door to a type of candidate, perhaps, of a higher potential capacity than heretofore. It is an amazing thing that, if a young man seeks a career and launches out in the City of London, there are many ways, in business and speculation, where he can acquire an enormous salary. On this question of salary, we get a music-hall artist of very indifferent capacity drawing £400 or £500 per week, while some of our finest members of the Civil Service and medical profession and even some Members of the Front Bench are working for what the Americans call "pea-nuts and chicken feed." That ought to be borne in mind. We will never get a proper system of society unless there is a sense of proportion, and not such great disparity between salaries as operates to-day. I trust that, in regard to civil servants, due regard will be paid to the question of their remuneration.
It is not satisfactory for a man to sit back in an office, with a thick carpet under his feet, and say to himself, "I have domestic anxieties and worries",

like the policeman, who gets £5 or £6 a week, and a little pension tacked on at the end of an eventless career. I trust that those men of initiative who will be employed in the future, will feel that the Government are paying them on more generous terms than has been the case in the past. If that is to be the effect of this discussion, I think we shall have marched forward to some extent, and given these men who will be coming into the Service again the feeling that they are to be given a real part in the ruling and administration of their country.

2.32 p.m.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: My time is extremely limited and I cannot follow the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, but the House has now some opportunity of judging of the efficiency or otherwise of our Civil Service. When, however, my hon. Friend talked about remuneration, I would remind him that there is such a thing as fame. As Milton wrote in "Lycidas":
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind).
I think this country should thank heaven that we have a Civil Service such as we should have—a thing of the greatest integrity and also, I think, of the greatest intelligence. But I would like to say that I think we, Members of the House of Commons, are perhaps the greatest curse of the Civil Service. In business, I might speculate, and, if I am a right judge of the times, I make money. If my men are right for 60 per cent. of the time, they are good, but we Members of the House of Commons will not let this very intelligent Civil Service make mistakes. If they make the slightest mistake, we pillory them here. I would like to see the top men in the Service really well paid. Big organisations and cartels can afford to pay people well; they have their own political organisations and advisers. Very often, they are infinitely better paid than civil servants, and there is a danger in this country that we are not going to get the very best men.
I now come to the particular point which I wish to mention. In Part II of the White Paper, at the bottom of page 5, there are the lines:
We hope shortly to extend our consideration to the professional, scientific and technical classes, which, though smaller, are equally important.


I am one of those people who think that this country must make much more use of science, and I hope that, when the time comes, these technical and scientific men will be considered, and not only on the narrow issue as scientific and technical men. I once asked you, Mr. Speaker, if an economist was not a scientist. I want to see more economists in the Civil Service. We must have men who can sell things. We are going to have much more governmental control in our lives, and especially in industry, in the future, and it is essential that we should have the best chemists, the best engineers, the best economists and the best market men. Up to now, these men have been working in these Departments largely for the love of it, largely as a vocation. We must greatly extend the scope. I do not think we are going to get the right men unless we approach this matter in a very different manner. Having decided to pay these men properly, we must put them in a proper relationship to the administrative staff. They must not play second fiddle. I believe that people, such as those referred to in the two lines I have quoted, are the people on whom our future life is going to depend, and, having drawn attention to that point, I keep my promise not to detain the House for more than a few minutes.

2.37 p.m.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: I think we have had an important discussion to-day, and, when my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward) expresses regret that this House has not been filled, I would remind her of two facts. First, some of us, who usually sit on these benches, are to-day in what I might call another place, and, further, the absence from these benches of a large number of hon. Members is due to the almost complete unanimity with which they support the proposals of the Government. When the House is full, it is generally a sign of a controversial atmosphere and an indication that a division is going to take place at the end. I, for my part, am certainly not going to depart from the atmosphere of kindliness towards the Government which has broadly characterised our Debate to-day.
I believe that, certainly in all the principal details, this scheme is one that should commend itself to the common sense of this House, not merely because

it is the joint production, according to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), of himself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but because we have here, I think, a Report which has studied the interests of all sections, and, at any rate to the lay mind, has, to a very large extent, met the requirements of a large section of persons who desire to enter into the Civil Service. This House has a very special duty with regard to these servants of the Government, and its duty is of two kinds. First, it is to secure the greatest efficiency of this Civil Service, which is the finest in the world to-day, and like which there has never been anything in the history of the past. Where we should be without our Civil Service, I do not know, but I am quite sure that my party in particular are absolutely determined that the Civil Service should be efficient, and that, from our point of view, the efficiency of the Civil Service is essential to the future government of the country. But it is not sufficient that the Civil Service should be efficient. I am not quite sure whether any other speaker has mentioned the point, though I have only been absent from the Debate for a quarter of an hour. The age distribution of the Civil Service must be sound, and it was one of the serious defects of the policy pursued after the last war that the age distribution was disorganised. As I understand it, the Civil Service may be in some difficulty in the early future owing to that disorganisation of the age distribution which occurred as a result of the policy pursued after the last war. I am very glad to see, therefore, that some steps are being taken to prevent that happening again.
In addition to making sure of the efficiency and correct age distribution of the Civil Service, I think this House has a duty to those members of the public who are hoping to earn their living by the public services which they can perform through the Civil Service of the country, and, finally, I think this House has a duty to preserve the balance equally with regard to the sexes in this matter, and I shall have a word to say presently about what the hon. Member for Wallsend said just now. I was one of those who very strongly criticised stopping the competitive examinations in the Civil Service at the beginning of the war. In the conditions then


prevailing, I thought, contrary to the Financial Secretary of the time, who is now, I think, the Postmaster-General, that these competitive examinations ought to have continued, and I have no reason to think that I was wrong. I do not say they should have gone on throughout the war, but I think they were stopped, at any rate, far too soon, and I think it would have been better for the Civil Service had they been continued. However, it is no good going back over the past; we are now faced with the proposals for the future.
I am bound to say that I think these proposals are much fairer to applicants than seemed likely when I made my protest, because I was judging, of course, by what happened after the last war, when certain classes were definitely shut out, owing to the age distribution, and large numbers of boys and girls, who had been training all through their junior lives, with the hope and expectancy of becoming civil servants, never had a chance of coming in at all. If I understand the present proposals aright, that will not be the case this time, because I understand that every boy and girl who would have been eligible for the examination at the beginning of the war will find their upper age limit so extended that they will have the chance of coming in now. I think I am interpreting it rightly, but, perhaps, if I am wrong, the Financial Secretary will put me right. May I congratulate this Committee and the Government in adopting a principle which is so much more fair to the boys and girls, who are certainly men and women by this time, who were not allowed to take part in the competitions for the Civil Service owing to the opening of the war?
With regard to the question of the interview, I listened with interest to the account given by my hon. Friend behind me. I think we all recognise the grave dangers of a success or failure of a candidate by the impression formed by one or two persons taking the interview. When you have a written examination you have something which is not subject to the bias of the examiner. When you have an interview there is always some risk that some particular bias in the examiner's mind will go either in favour of, or against a particular candidate. That is a very grave danger and we must always

be prepared to guard against it, but I am not prepared, in consequence of that, to rule out an interview which enables you to form a judgment of a candidate's merits. Any suggestion that it has been tainted by a political bias or a social bias should be very carefully watched, because that would be a very grave danger indeed.
I would like to inquire how far these interviewers are going to be persons really qualified to undertake that task. They should be persons of knowledge and great breadth of view and able to distinguish between a man's ability to express his views and the character and complexion of the views that he expresses. They want to have a good measure of psychology. It may be that young men or young women in their teens may be very nervous and very modest and yet it does not at all follow, when they reach full maturity, and the age of discretion and later life, they may not have the full characters required in the positions which they seek. I do not think that even psychology is enough. There is a great deal of new thought being brought into the matter of estimating the qualities of individuals. There are certain people called anthropologists, who have their views upon dividing up the human race into different categories. I do not know enough about that to judge. It is a comparatively new science and it may be that it is too early to express ideas of that kind. I hope that those who are claiming this individual examination will not shut out from their minds any new scientific approaches to the discretionery analysis of the gifts and qualifications of individuals, both for the purposes of deciding whether they are suitable to be brought into the Civil Service and as to the kind of work to which they should be set if they succeed in their entry.
I should like to say a word with regard to dates. As I read the Report, the termination of the war date, T-Day, is tentatively to be put at 31st December, 1944, and I am afraid that it seems only too likely that T-Day will be considerably later than that. I would like to ask the Financial Secretary, when he comes to reply, whether I have rightly read the recommendations of the White Paper to be these, that for every day that T-Day is later than 31st December, 1944, almost all the dates in the White Paper


will be postponed by an equivalent number of days, the age limit for entry and all the rest of it will be postponed to that extent.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peake): The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peake) indicated assent.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: The Financial Secretary agrees, I understand, with the interpretation I have put on these proposals. With regard to the nature of the examinations, when boys and girls come straight from school or young men and young women come from their university, the last two or three years of their life before they come out has been devoted to a certain amount of book knowledge and when you subject them to examination, it is natural that you should examine them on the kind of subjects they have been studying during those last two or three years. The fact that they do well or ill in that is not merely a sign that they have acquired a certain amount of knowledge, but is a sign that, in the work which they have been doing, they have taken a reasonable and intelligent interest and have come to certain reasonable conclusions. When a man has left his collegiate occupation for five or ten years, whether he remembers certain things in history he learnt five or six years ago or whether he can do certain sums or certain other things, is not so much a test of his general intelligence, as a test of pure memory as to how far the facts which were impressed on his mind all those years back have remained. Particularly is that the case with ex-Servicemen. They have gone through a gruelling test in a world entirely removed in many cases, except in the technical branches of the Forces, from their scholastic education.
Therefore, it is right that an entirely different sort of examination should be the one imposed upon these people, who, instead of entering the examination at the end of their school career, have had this enormous interval of several years and are now at 21 or 22, it may be in certain cases 24, 28 or 29, confronted with an examination years after the scholastic part of their life has come to an end. As I understand it, all that is to be taken into account, and perhaps the Financial Secretary will say a word or two as to that. I would add that the ex-Serviceman will be at a disadvantage compared with the man who has been in

civil life, because he will be further removed from his educational career, not necessarily by years, but by the matters to which he has had to devote his mind in the intervening period. I personally, would like to see the ex-Serviceman—and possibly even the civilian—given an opportunity of having another turn at the slightly more scholastic side of life, if he is so disposed. If the ex-Serviceman has gone from an interrupted educational course into the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, I hope that he will be allowed, if he wishes, to have a short period of continuing his educational life before he has to take the examination. Therefore, I am pleading for a short interval between his demobilisation and the necessity of his taking this competitive examination.
I want to say a word with regard to the question of temporary civil servants. The paragraphs referring to these are those on page 13. It has been represented to me that the governing words are in paragraph 36, the second half of the first sentence, which reads:
We recommend that a proportion of the accrued vacancies in the junior executive and junior clerical grades should be reserved for the best of the available temporary staff between the ages of 30 and 50.
A certain number of temporary civil servants have represented to me that that sentence implies the degrading and reducing in salary of some temporary civil servants of the executive class who get established positions. Personally, I am inclined to read paragraph 36 in conjunction with the four previous paragraphs on the page, and I certainly myself should not have put the interpretation that they appear to put on those words. But it does not in the least matter what I think about it. That is of no consequence at all. What is important is what the Government mean by it. Therefore, I shall be glad if the Financial Secretary—I am sorry I did not give him notice of this but I think it is a point with which he can easily deal—can tell us this. I understand that temporary civil servants are not complaining that there will be only a comparatively small proportion kept on, but what they are complaining of is that, if men are kept on, they should be among the best and not among merely the lower grade execu-


tive officers. Can we be assured that, where a man in a fairly high position in the executive class is kept on, he will not by virtue of the sentence I have read out be forced to come down to the junior grade which is referred to in paragraph 36?
I now want to come to the point which was raised by the hon. Lady the Member for Wallsend. The position of ex-Service women entrants is still rather obscure to me. I put a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer while he was speaking but I am still rather obscure about it. I want to put what I understand to be my interpretation of the rule with regard to ex-Servicemen and ex-Service women and I would like the Financial Secretary to tell me whether I am right, and, if I am wrong, what are the real facts. As I understand it, the statistics on which the White Paper is based are these, that the number of ex-Service men in the clerical classes of the Civil Service would be something below 50 per cent., I think, about 42 per cent. The Government are proposing, therefore, that a percentage slightly above the existing percentage should be retained for ex-Service men and that even if the entrants to the examination of ex-Service men are below 50 per cent. of the whole, nevertheless, 50 per cent. of the qualified posts will be accorded to them, provided they reach a certain standard of efficiency.
As I understand it, the women are to get nothing in excess of the proportion; they are to be given places in the Civil Service exactly in proportion to their entries in any particular examination. They feel, therefore, that they are not getting as much preference as is given to the men in those circumstances. I finish by repeating what I said at the beginning, that this Paper is admirable and does seem to me to deal with all the requirements. I believe it will be found to serve the interests both of the country and of those seeking positions in the Civil Service.

It being Three o'clock and there being Private Business set down by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 6, further Proceeding stood postponed.

LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY BILL [Lords] (Suspended Bill). [By Order].

Order for Third Reading read.

Motion made, and question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Major Leighton: On a point of Order. May I ask whether, as the same point is at issue in both these Bills—the London Midland and Scottish Railway Bill and the London Midland and Scottish Railway (Canals) Bill—the same discussion should cover both?

Mr. Speaker: I feel sure that hon. Members will not want to waste the time of the House, and as the point raised in both cases is identical, the decision on the first Bill would cover the second Bill also. I hope the House will agree to that.

3.3 p.m.

Mr. Crawford Greene: I beg to move, to leave out "now", and, at the end of the Question, to add "upon this day six months."
I move this Amendment because I believe I have a very good case, and because I believe I am doing the right thing by the constituency which I represent. There is no thought of vote-catching in my mind because I do not intend to stand again. I am simply carrying out what I believe to be my duty towards my constituency. The story is simply this. Worcester's water supply depends upon the River Severn, and in the River Severn, to use common or garden words, there is clean water and dirty water. The clean water comes from the uplands of Montgomeryshire and where the river turns round and begins to go south it brings down the dirty water from the Black Country, and also salt water from Droitwich. Commercially, it is impossible to take salt out of water, although it can be done in the laboratory. We have our waterworks just near the City of Worcester, and they are able to deal with the water and make it perfectly good drinking water, provided they continue to have this supply of clean water from Montgomeryshire.
The L.M.S. are asking for 8,000,000 gallons a day of the clean water. Before the war, Worcester had a population of 50,000 or 51,000 and required 4,000,000 gallons a day. That was just enough for


a population of that size, but the population at the present time is between 60,000 and 70,000, and it is possible that, at a later date, Worcester will have to supply the areas South of the city with water. If that is so, 10,000,000 gallons a day will be needed instead of the 4,000,000 at the present time. But the L.M.S. want to decrease the 4,000,000 which Worcester is getting at the present time. They want to take 25 per cent. of the clean water which will put Worcester in a most perilous position. [An HON. MEMBER: "What do they want the water for?"] For everything, for drinking among other things. They will have people to speak for them, however, and some will speak quite well. How is this railway company going to account for its demand for 8,000,000 gallons a day? I have some perfectly marvellous figures here: Messrs. J. D. Wood, for driving a turbine at a mill, 840,000 gallons a day; Lord Powis, for driving a water-wheel at a saw-mill, 810,000 gallons a day; J. D. Evans, water-courses for cattle drinking, 250,000 gallons a day.

Mr. Butcher: Mr. Butcher (Holland with Boston): How many cattle?

Mr. Crawford Greene: I am coming to that. Mrs. Humphreys Owen, ornamental lakes, 125,000 gallons a day. To make these figures really interesting, let us look at Mr. Evans's farm—250,000 gallons a day. Let us suppose that his stock drink 10 gallons a day each, which, of course, they do not, that means, on his farm, he has 25,000 cattle. These figures are perfectly absurd, and I am looking forward to what is going to be said to bolster them up after I have sat down. The company say they want 3,000,000 for themselves, 3,000,000 for other users and 3,000,000 for waste, leakage and evaporation. Let us call their requirements 8,000,000 in all.
It may be wondered why this Bill has been able to get so far as the Third Reading in this House. It had to go through a Committee in another place and it had to go through Committee D of this House of Commons. A certain gentleman named Wallace, who is an expert witness for the company, stated on oath:
all we take out of the Severn is 32,000 gallons a day which is absolutely a drop in the bucket,

and, naturally, in the other place, they thought the city of Worcester had nothing to cry about if it were losing only 32,000 gallons a day. But when the matter came before Committee D, the same expert witness was asked by our leading counsel how much water the company really wanted, and the reply was 8,000,000 gallons. Here is Mr. Wallace, in one place, saying 32,000 gallons, and in another 8,000,000. I wish to draw the attention of the House to that point. In my opinion the Committee made a mistake. They apologised for it afterwards and I have the exact words used by the Chairman. The Chairman said:
The Committee consider the Preamble of the Bill proved, but we are unable to accept the protective Clause proposed by the Worcester Corporation.
The protective Clause is Clause 15 (c) and, under the guidance of the Chairman, the Committee refused to consider that. Later on it dawned upon the Committee that they had made a "bloomer." The House will forgive me for a rather long quotation——

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman cannot discuss the Worcester Clause now. It was rejected by the Committee and is not in the Bill.

Mr. Crawford Greene: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, and I do not propose to say even what is in the Clause, but I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that The Chairman, later on, apologised on behalf of the Committee for disallowing that Clause. He said this:
You will appreciate that I did try to indicate, before the Committee came to a decision, what we had in mind. I must say it had just escaped us"—
the House should note that phrase, "it had just escaped us"—
that there was in the Clause an agreement to pay half the cost, if they had been set up by the other parties, and I see the difficulty to which you are now referring. Perhaps we may leave it at that.
I want to draw the attention of the authors of the Bill to these words, which then follow:
We feel that there is a time coming, and very rapidly, when under a Water Bill all these things will be looked into. For something of this sort to have been brought out so glaringly before the Committee, and our having taken no notice of it, it might rather reflect on us, that we were not quite appreciative of the seriousness of the waste of water.


There you have an apology and an explanation, and I have tried to explain to this House how the Bill was able to survive scrutiny in another place and, in the earlier stages, in this House.
Now we in Worcester have made what I think is a very sporting offer to the company. We do not think they want anything like 2,500,000 gallons of water per day, but we will let them have it. They can have 2,500,000 gallons and we want what we had before. That is all. I am perfectly willing to negotiate with the supporters of this Bill on those terms. I am willing also to discuss with them the postponement of any definite action at the present time, considering that there is sooner or later to be a national Water Bill.
I think I have taken sufficient of the time of the House. I have made I think the point, that our supply of water for drinking and other purposes will be absolutely polluted if this Bill becomes an Act. I ask the promoters to see that they do not do a grave injustice to the people of the "Ancient and Faithful City" of Worcester.

Mr. Speaker: As there is no seconder, the Amendment falls.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY (CANALS) BILL [Lords] (SUSPENDED BILL) (By Order).

As amended, considered.

Standing Orders 240 and 262 suspended.

Bill to be read the Third time forthwith.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

RECRUITMENT TO THE CIVIL SERVICE

Postponed Proceeding on Question,
That this House approves the proposals contained in Command Paper No. 6567 for recruitment to established posts in the Civil Service during the reconstruction period."—

resumed.

3.15 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peake): As my right hon. Friend opposite observed, we have had a very interesting, but a very non-controversial, Debate on the White Paper on Recruitment to Established Posts in the Civil Service. The object of this Debate was to get the views of hon. Members upon the proposals contained in the White Paper. The proposals are the work, as the House knows, of a Committee of the Civil Service National Whitley Council, representing both the official and the staff sides, and the Report of the Committee is a document agreed by all parties. It is bound, therefore, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) pointed out, to carry very great weight with His Majesty's Government, but of course there would be no point whatever in having this Debate unless we were prepared also to take into account, and to consider, the points made during the Debate on various quarters of the House.
More than one hon. Member has emphasised the great importance of avoiding on this occasion the mistakes made during and after the last war. As a result of the accrued vacancies and, in fact, all the normal vacancies for some years after the last war being filled only from ex-Service sources, we have at the present time a Civil Service with a very bad distribution of age groups, and there is no doubt that the country has to some extent suffered from that fact in recent years. The proposal in the White Paper, therefore, that we should begin, immediately hostilities finish, to fill the accrued vacancies with candidates over a fairly wide range of age and, at the same time, to resume the normal competitions, has I think met with the general approval of the House.
I was asked one or two questions. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) intervened during the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask what would be the position of men who succeeded in examinations prior to the war but who have never taken up their posts owing to having immediately to join the Services. I can give the unqualified assurance that the posts of those men are waiting for them, and there will be no further tests for them to go through. In regard to the speech


of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby—I am afraid on this occasion I did not hear it all—I understand that he warmly approved the Report and had no points of criticism to make.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Mr. W. J. Brown indicated assent.

Mr. Peake: That is an unusual position for the hon. Gentleman to find himself in with regard to His Majesty's Government, and I can only say that I wish on this occasion I had had the pleasure of hearing him throughout his speech.
The hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr Geoffrey Hutchinson), I think, was the main critic of the proposals in the White Paper, and he put a number of specific points to me about which I should like to say one or two words. First of all he asked, why did we choose the National Whitley Council as the body to whom this question of post-war recruitment should be submitted for consideration? Well, Sir, Whitleyism in the Civil Service was established, I think, immediately after the end of the last war——

Mr. Brown: In 1919.

Mr. Peake: —and within the prescribed scope of the Council's work is the question of the general principles governing the conditions of service—recruitment, hours, promotion, discipline, tenure, remuneration and superannuation. Therefore, it is perfectly clear that this was the appropriate body to which this important issue of recruitment should be submitted. My hon. and learned Friend asked that his suggestions on points of detail should be considered, and I have already given an assurance that they will; but, as I have said, we must bear in mind the great weight and authority which attaches to the Report of the Committee. My hon. and learned Friend made a number of detailed suggestions, and asked whether we were tied to the proposals contained in the White Paper. I can only say that his points of criticism and detail will be considered, although I cannot hold out much hope that as a result of their consideration of them the Government will change their mind.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes), whom I am glad to see in his place, asked about the position of temporary civil servants, as did my right hon. Friend opposite. The proposals in regard to the recruitment for estab-

lished posts of persons at present holding temporary appointments in the Civil Service are contained on pages 12, 13 and 14 of the White Paper. I would make it clear that permanent appointment to established posts in the higher grades will be made by selection—that is to say, for the administrative class and for the higher grades of the executive class, those officers who have shown special merit and ability will be individually selected. They will be recommended by the heads of their Departments, and will then be combed out by the Treasury and by the Civil Service Commission. Altogether there will not be many of them, but where a man has shown special aptitude and has rendered valuable service during the war and desires to continue in the Civil Service, and where we think he would be a valuable addition to the Service, he will be given an opportunity in that way. When we come to the clerical grade and the junior executive grade, we reach the grades to which the 15 per cent. of the total accrued vacancies, mentioned in Paragraph 37 of the White Paper, will apply. I hope my right hon. Friend is reassured on the question he put. There may be certain officers in the higher executive grade who are not selected by the heads of their Departments for permanent established posts, but who may desire to make the Civil Service a permanent career. If they want to do that they will have to give up their higher appointments in order to enter for the reconstruction competitions.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Then to that extent it appears that my fears are justified.

Mr. Peake: It is purely voluntary on their part as to whether they wish to continue permanently in the Civil Service. They are not being put under any disability; they are, in fact, enjoying a measure of preference over the ordinary person outside the Civil Service who has not entered it at all. That is to say, they will come in as part of the number competing for the reserved 15 per cent. of places.
Reference has been made to the method of selection employed during the war by the Service authorities for the commissioned ranks of the Army. This selection has been by War Office selection boards, and in popular parlance is called the


"country house" method of selecting officers. Hon. Members may have heard something about this method, which has taken the place of the interview across the table which lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Candidates are subjected to a test running over three or four days, in fairly comfortable and sociable conditions, in the selection board establishments, which are situated in the countryside. There is a reference in the Report to a possibility of adopting a technique of this kind for selection to the administrative class of the Civil Service. All I can say is that a good deal of adaptation of the War Office method would be required if it were to be adopted for the Civil Service. It appears to have borne valuable results in selection for the commissioned ranks for the Army, and we are examining it carefully to see whether, suitably adapted, it would be a good method for selecting candidates for accrued vacancies in the administrative class of the Civil Service for which the academic qualifications of the candidate could not be expected to be as good as they would have been had he come straight from school or university. As I say, the method is being carefully examined and no doubt in due course a further statement will be made on this subject.
I think I have covered most of the ground. One or two Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward), mentioned the question of preference for ex-Service women as compared with the preference given to ex-Servicemen. We have not given such a high degree of preference to ex-Service women as we propose to give to ex-Servicemen. A fixed proportion of the vacancies will be specifically reserved for ex-Servicemen, and over and beyond that persons who are successful in the examinations may over-lap and also absorb some of the free quota of places. The position is rather different in regard to ex-Service women. I think there is a clear distinction on the ground that they have not been subjected to the same strenuous hardships in campaigns of war as have serving men. Many have remained much nearer home, and have had much better facilities for keeping in contact with ordinary social and political life and continuing their education and studies. Moreover, in considering whether you are to give a high degree of prefer-

ence to ex-Service women you must remember the many other women's organisations which have rendered valuable service in the war, and which are not comprised in the three Services allied to the Navy, Army and Air Force respectively; it would be extremely difficult to draw a line and exclude bodies such as the Women's Land Army, the nursing and other auxiliary organisations, and the like. We have ensured that ex-Service women obtain a number of places proportionate to the number of candidates entering for the Service. If, out of 1,000 candidates, 50 come from the Women's Services, then 1 in 20 of the successful candidates is bound to come from those Services. That is a measure of preference, and I think it is in accordance with the general views of the House that they should have a degree of preference, but not such a high degree as the men who have had to bear the heat and burden of the day, perhaps many thousands of miles from home, under strenuous conditions.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Taking the figures the right hon. Gentleman has given, who are the 1,000—all the candidates, or all the men who are not ex-Servicemen, or all the women?

Mr. Peake: Leaving out of the picture the Service candidates who are entitled to the fixed reservations, if there are 1,000 candidates left to compete for the remaining vacancies and if 50 of these candidates are drawn from the Women's Services, the number of open places to be allotted to the Women's Services will be one in 20.
I think that by adopting these proposals we are doing something towards building up a really efficient Civil Service for the future. There are many aspects, other than recruitment, in the building up and maintenance of an efficient Civil Service. There is the question of remuneration, and the question of training which was the subject of a Report by my predecessor as Financial Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Assheton). Everything that has been said on these matters during the Debate will be considered. I should like to draw attention to the atmosphere in which this Debate has been conducted, which was very different from that which obtained at the corresponding period of the last


war. Then, civil servants were considered the lowest of the low. They were cartooned and lampooned in the Press, described as Cuthberts, and were continually having white feathers affixed to them by eager and patriotic young women in the streets round Whitehall. For a great many years recruitment to the Civil Service was absolutely barred to anyone who had not served in the Forces. We have had no demand of that sort on this occasion, and I think the reason is, first of all, that this has been a much more total war than the last, but there is, also much greater appreciation in this war of the immensely valuable part which the Civil Service has played. Ministers see a great deal more, I expect, of civil servants than do other-Members, in the ordinary way—certainly we see a great deal more of the higher ranks—and I should not like the Debate to conclude without paying my tribute to the unfailing service, intense industry and unfailing devotion to duty of the higher ranks in the Civil Service, which has played an immense part in carrying our arms so far on the road to victory.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That this House approves the proposals contained in Command Paper No. 6567 for recruitment to established posts in the Civil Service during the reconstruction period.

Orders of the Day — CHARTERED AND OTHER BODIES (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS)

3.34 p.m.

Sir Harold Webbe: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Clyde Navigation Trustees (Extension of Term of Office) Order, 1944, a copy of which was presented on 5th December, be annulled.
This is the first of three Motions, in my name and in the names of my hon. Friends, the others being:
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Epping Forest Verderers (Extension of Term of Office) Order, 1944, a copy of which was presented on 5th December, be annulled.
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the General Medical Council (Temporary Provisions) Order, 1944, a copy of which was presented on 5th December, he annulled.

The points that I desire to raise are common in all three and I would ask you, Sir, if I might be allowed, in making my argument on the first, to refer by way of illustration to the facts relating to the two bodies which form the subject of the other Motions, in which case I should not desire to trouble the House by speaking more than once.

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. Member's request is quite reasonable. It may seem odd that one should debate on the first Motion, something affecting the Clyde, Epping Forest and the General Medical Council, but I understand that the point in all three Motions is exactly the same, and, therefore, it will be convenient to debate all three on the first Motion.

Sir H. Webbe: I feel that I have some explanation to give to the House for the appearance of these three oddly assorted Motions. I assure the House that I have no feeling of animosity for any one of these three admirable bodies. I am sure that under the watchful eye of the Clyde Navigation Trustees our shipping moves freely, happily and safely through the waters of that great river. I am happy to think that the Epping Forest Verderers are studious to preserve the beauties of our countryside for the enjoyment of our leisure and I am confident that, when we have played our part, and taken our ease in this world, the General Medical Council will very efficiently arrange for our passage to the next. The reason why I have put these Motions on the Paper is that there have just been tabled three Orders in Council, which exempt these bodies for a further year from the obligation to hold elections. When I saw those Motions I asked myself why it should be necessary to grant this further exemption. I am aware—I do not offer a word of criticism—that in the early days of the war, in the confusion that existed when the House was obliged, for obvious reasons, to extend its own life and to postpone its appeal to the electors and when local government elections were suspended, there were many bodies similar to those which form the subject of these Motions, anxious to be relieved of an obligation which they might well find themselves unable to fulfil. That position was met and relief was given by the Chartered and other Bodies (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1939. But the position surely is not what it was at the beginning of the war. The


House at present has before it Bills which are designed to make possible elections of Members of Parliament and an early resumption of early Government elections, and I find it difficult to believe that in the sixth year of the war it is still necessary to exempt bodies of a kind similar to those that I am mentioning from the obligation to hold elections.
I have been at pains to find out exactly what is involved in the holding of these elections. In the case of the Clyde Navigation Trust, there are 42 trustees, of whom 18 are elected. The electors are the harbour ratepayers. There are, it is true, something over 1,800 of them, but they are all harbour ratepayers and they must, therefore, be easily accessible to the authority which initiates the election. The election, I understand, is by poll ballot. I find it very difficult to understand why, in the conditions that exist to-day, it is necessary any longer to exempt this body from the obligations of holding elections. In the case of the Epping Forest Verderers, a body with a delightfully romantic name, which is closely associated with the City of London, the election is of course a little more complicated and picturesque in character, but of the total body of verderers, of whom I think there are 16, four are for election. They hold office for seven years, so that the necessity for this Order implies that every one of these eminent gentlemen—I am afraid I do not know their names, but I am sure that they are eminent and capable—has been in office now for at least seven years, and more probably nearly 12.
Who are the electors there? They are those who have rights of common in Epping Forest. I am afraid I do not know what that means, but they must certainly be people who are within reach of Epping Forest, or the right of common could not be much use to them, and they must be people who can be got at. (Laughter.) I apologise for any misunderstanding caused by the use of that phrase. There are 536 of them. If an election is held, it is true that, with the pomp and ceremony associated with the City of London, these 536 gentlemen or their representatives have to gather together somewhere to declare their will. I do not think that that is a much more serious business than the election of aldermen and Lord Mayor, which has gone on quite sweetly without

any difficulty during the years of the war, and I find it difficult to appreciate that it is impossible to contact these 536 gentlemen and ask them whether they would like their seven- or nine-year-old representatives to continue.
I admit that the case of the General Medical Council is a little more difficult, for there are a large number of constituents, comprising all the registered practitioners, who number 50,000 or 60,000. I am told that the register might well contain as many as 44,000 names. An election is not an impossible business and is certainly not much more difficult than holding an ordinary by-election. It might be argued that in this case the Council could not get a proper election because so many of the electors, the medical practitioners, are away serving the country in the Forces. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not use that argument, because the House has already decided that the absence of all these doctors in the Forces is no valid reason for postponing legislation which fundamentally affects the whole medical service and drastically and vitally affects the future of every one of them. Therefore, I submit that in this case also an election should be possible.
I do not want it to be thought that this is really a trivial point. I submit that a serious point of principle is involved. We are a democratic country, and the whole of our government by public bodies is based on the conception of representative bodies freely elected by those whom they serve. We attach great importance to the process known as refreshing those elected bodies by calling on the representatives to show themselves to those whom they represent and to seek their suffrages. I submit that this right, which is an essential feature of democracy and democratic government, which we were obliged to surrender at the beginning of the war for reasons quite beyond our control, should be restored to us as soon as possible. I ask the Government to make a start now by accepting these Motions and by following a similar line of policy towards any other bodies which ask for further exemption from the obligation to hold elections. I make that plea to the Government, and I hope that any of those friends of democracy who a few days ago were so vocal in its defence will support me in that plea.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Ralph Etherton: I beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend has moved it so adequately and focused the arguments so well that I do not wish to detain the House more than a moment. I hope that the fact that only two of those associated with us in this matter wish to occupy the time of the House on it will not be taken as any indication of the fact that there is a lack of feeling about it. It is a question of principle. It has been promised that elections throughout the country shall be restored as soon as possible, and a Bill is about to come before the House which will provide the machinery for the resumption of elections generally at the earliest possible moment. In these circumstances, it seems wrong to us that these Orders should stand as at present drawn. We feel that the Prayers should be allowed to pass and that the Orders should be annulled, and that, if necessary, some Orders limiting the time, perhaps to next April, or at least to six months, should take their place. It is wrong that a full extension of another year should be given to these bodies if any extension at all is necessary. I can well see that some short extension may be necessary, because some of the Orders are back-dated, and to that extent it may be necessary for some small extension before elections can be held. My hon. Friend drew attention to the fact that there is no reason in these three cases why the elections should not be held. They can be held with comparative ease, and the fact that legislation has been brought before this House and passed which affects the whole of the medical profession, should be a strong argument in favour of the election taking place so far as the General Medical Council is concerned.

3.47 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Attlee): I entirely agree with the hon. Member for the Abbey Division of Westminster (Sir H. Webbe) that, wherever we can and wherever it is feasible, we should restore the right of elections. I would remind the House that this is not something which is imposed on various bodies by the Government, but that it is done at the request of these bodies. Of course, it is necessary that we should watch to see that bodies do not perpetuate

themselves unnecessarily. These Orders are not granted as a matter of course. They are examined very carefully, and steps were taken last month, in view of the changing circumstances, to send around to every body which has taken advantage of the Act to ask them how soon they thought they could get rid of action under the Act. Therefore, I think my hon. Friends will agree that this is not a matter in which the Government are trying to keep the electors away from their rights. On the other hand, I thought my hon. Friend was perhaps a little optimistic in thinking that we had already got out of the difficulties that the war imposes on elections.
I will give some examples from these bodies. Let me take, first, the Clyde Navigation Trust. Certain members of that Trust are appointed by the local authorities, etc., and 18 are elected by the payers of dues, merchants and shipowners, using the Clyde. My hon. Friend thought that that was quite easy and presented no difficulty. They have to pay dues or rates of at least £10 in the 12 months ending on the preceding 1st September. The qualification of the trustees depends on the payment of at least £25 in rates during that period, but here is the difficulty, that on account of the war the ships of a large number of shipowners have been requisitioned by the Government and therefore they have not paid the dues. Therefore, if you were to proceed straight away, you would disfranchise a large number of most important people who should be represented on the Trust. I think my hon. Friend will realise that this is a very real difficulty, and I do not expect to see the ships derequisitioned all at once. We are not in that position in the war which enables us to do that.
Apart from that, there is a great deal of strain—and this applies to almost all of them—upon their clerical staffs. A good deal of cost is also involved—I am not making a great point of this, but that is a point of interest to those who are keen on economy and the utilisation of our man-power in the best possible way. We are trying to avoid putting such burdens on people at the present time. There is an unanswerable case in connection with the Clyde Navigation Trust, in the fact that if you had the election now, you would disfranchise a large number of people who ought to have a voice in the representation of the trust.
Let me turn to the case of the Epping Forest Verderers. There are four of them to be elected. They are elected once every seven years by persons or bodies entitled to rights of common in or over Epping Forest and whose names are entered upon a Register of Commoners made in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule to the Act. The normal septennial election was due to be held in March, 1943, but had twice to be postponed. It is proposed to postpone it again. There again, I do not need to tell my hon. Friend, who is so prominent in London government, anything about the kind of conditions that obtain in the places from which that electorate is drawn—Epping, Theydon Bois, Loughton, Ilford, Waltham Holy Cross, Chingford, Chigwell, Woodford, Walthamstow, Leyton, Wanstead, Little Ilford and West Ham. There has been a good deal of movement of population from those areas and a good deal of destruction of property, and it is not so easy, without a vast amount of trouble, to trace all those people, some 500 individuals scattered about these various habitations, who have these rights of common. This is an ancient body, as hon. Members can see from its name, and various steps have to be taken. The Corporation have to give notice to the commoners of their intention to prepare a register, and there has to be further notice that the register is open for inspection. There have to be various days for the hearing of objections and complaints. It has been found in practice that you have to put the machinery in operation a very long time ahead. It is too late to do it now in regard to the verderers.
It is worth while noticing also that, owing to conditions in the City of London, the Bill of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary with regard to local elections proposes to postpone the elections for the City Corporation because of the condition of certain wards which have suffered very severely in the blitz. Therefore, there would not be a renewal of the whole of the verderers. There is one final point, which is that in case it might be thought by any hon. Member that we are here trying to prevent some very enthusiastic democrats from exercising their rights, it might be interesting for hon. Members to know that there has been no contested election since 1921.
I now turn to the General Medical Council of which there are 39 members. There are 32 nominated with the advice of the Privy Council or chosen by certain colleges and universities, which may be held to be mainly indirect representatives of the medical profession. There are seven who are elected by medical practitioners. The latest available figures show that the electorate numbers somewhere about 65,000. The strain on the medical profession at the present time is immense. The strain on the General Medical Council has been pretty heavy. The fact is that people do not know where a large proportion of those 65,000 members are. A large proportion of them is overseas. A great many of the other doctors have been moved about she country according to the exigencies of the war. Even in normal times this election is fairly costly. A single election costs about £500 and sometimes there have to be two or three a year, according to the changes and chances of this mortal life. The staff of the Council has been very greatly reduced. It would be very difficult and take a very long time and involve an unnecessary amount of time, if the election papers were to reach all members of the profession.
Therefore, I do not think there is a case at present for holding up these Orders as against any other Orders. On their merits, I think they should go forward. These things do not come forward as a matter of course. They are examined very carefully, by the Department. I have examined them myself. It is quite right that this House should be jealous in these matters and watch them closely, but I will ask my hon. Friends to withdraw their Prayer, in the knowledge that the very closest watch is being kept on all these matters, and that steps have already been taken, asking these various bodies to see how soon they can get back to elections so that as soon as possible we shall get back to the regular system of elections. One further point is that hon. Members might say: "Let us sweep away the Act." You cannot do that. You have to carry it on, even if no further calls are made, in order to validate what is done under it. My hon. Friends having ventilated these points have drawn attention to the need for preserving our democracy against any in-roads and perhaps they might now allow these Orders to go through.

3.56 p.m.

Commander King-Hall: After listening to the remarks of the mover and seconder of this Prayer, I waited with great interest to hear the other side of the story. I am bound to say that I think the Government have made out a practical case for, at any rate, the temporary carrying on of these arrangements. At the same time, I am glad this matter has been raised because it is important that the world should see that the British Parliament is keeping a very vigilant eye even on such small instances of democracy as these, which are of great psychological importance, so far as the principle is concerned.
I wish only to make one point, which I hope will be noted by the Government. I understand that, with the exception of the Epping Forest Verderers, who seem to be thoroughly imbued with the right and proper spirit of national government, there is no suggestion that these bodies would not like to have elections. There seems to be rather a danger in the remark made as regards the Clyde Navigation Trust. Till these firms are back again in their pre-war position, with derequisitioned ships, it is apparently impossible to hold an election and it seems to me as if it might be a very long time before a register on pre-war lines will be available. Might it not be worth considering whether a by-election could be held on the old register, or whether some new method might not be devised of getting out a new electoral register for the Clyde, if it should turn out that several, if not many, years may elapse before the Clyde can return to an entirely normal state of affairs?

Mr. Attlee: My hon. and gallant Friend will no doubt understand that that would mean a separate Act of Parliament in order to change the Clyde Navigation (Constitution) Act; but I quite agree that if it is going on for a long time the matter will have to be looked at again.

Commander King-Hall: I would note in conclusion that the Government have told us that they have asked these bodies when they think they can resume their normal practice. I hope there will be some means of giving information to the House about their replies when they have been obtained.

4.0 p.m.

Dr. Russell Thomas: I should not like the occasion to pass with-

out emphasising the fact that I have taken particular note, and that the House has taken particular note, that the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Government, has made it perfectly clear that the medical profession cannot be expected to come to any decision on any matter at the present time. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making his decision so clear. I think we shall bear this in mind when future Measures may be brought before the House.

Sir H. Webbe: Although I am a little disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman is so alarmed at the difficulties, I feel that, in view of the assurances he has given, I should not press this matter further, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker: I assume that the hon. Member does not wish to move either of the next two Motions in his name?

Sir H. Webbe: No, Sir.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — STREET BEGGING

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Beechman.]

4.3 p.m.

Major Studholme: I wish to draw attention to the question of street begging. This is a practice which is most undesirable. It is not only undesirable, but unnecessary, and I think it is important that the public and those members of our Allies who are at present in this country should realise that there is no necessity for any person to beg in the street. I do not suppose, indeed, there is any other country in the world that does so much for its unfortunates. In the first year of the war a letter appeared one day in "The Times" from a gentleman who described his perplexity when confronted in the street by old, maimed, or blind persons, playing instruments, selling matches or singing. Was their need genuine, he asked, and if so, why was not something done about it? Was one justified in giving them money? He hoped somebody would enlighten him.
I waited a month hoping that someone would reply to him. As nobody did, I ventured to write a letter to "The Times," as I had served for a good many years on local public assistance committees of the L.C.C., and on appeal tribunals of the Unemployment Assistance Board. I knew also a good deal about the valuable constructive work done for people who were down and out by the voluntary societies. I pointed out that in London the L.C.C., through its Public Assistance Committee, provided food, warmth, clothing and shelter, and where necessary medical treatment, for the destitute, that it is also ready to give them, where necessary, a helping hand back to independence. There is no stigma attaching to any genuine application for assistance, whether in cash or kind, and the officers at any relief station would give an applicant any information be required. I also pointed out the fact, not sufficiently known, that there was no necessity whatever for anybody to sleep out in the streets of London at night, that for every person who choose to do so there were at least 25 free, vacant beds available in hostels, homes and casual wards. These facts are well known to social workers and members of the L.C.C., but unfortunately the general public was, and is, largely ignorant of them.
The blind beggars, the people who ask you for the price of a meal or a bed, and all the rest of them, know perfectly well about all these services that are available to them. But they know also that by cultivating a woebegone appearance they can make an easy living out of a generous hearted public. If only these generous hearted people would stop giving indiscriminate charity to people in the street, and would send something instead to one of the recognised voluntary societies, they would have the satisfaction of knowing they were helping really genuine cases and not encouraging undeserving beggars.
A case I saw the other day in the street decided me to raise this question again, and I should like to tell the House about it. One evening as I was walking home I noticed a young man with crutches, dressed in civilian clothes, leaning against the railings outside an American Service club. He was wearing the Eighth Army Ribbon of the Africa Star. He looked very dejected, and as I passed

I thought "Poor fellow, he is tired and having a rest". On the following day, at about the same time, I noticed him again at the same spot. It was drizzling, he wore no overcoat, his shirt was torn and he looked, if possible, even more miserable than before. A kindly-faced American soldier slipped something into his hand. I stopped and asked him to tell me about himself. He told me he had been badly wounded in North Africa, and after many long weary months in hospital had been discharged from the Army at the beginning of this year; he was a single man, and receiving a pension of £2 a week. Certainly one of his legs was horribly crippled, and obviously no good. So, knowing the wonderful and extraordinarily successful work which has been done under the Government's scheme at such places as Leatherhead and St. Loyes, Exeter, to train and refit disabled men, many of them far worse maimed than he, I suggested that he should apply for training, and offered to help him to do so. His answer was that this would be no use to him, because he had a trade in his hands, that of an engineer, and at any rate he could not work until he had had his leg off, and he ought really to be in hospital. So I offered to help him to get there, but he made some excuse.
I was not at all impressed by the attitude of this young man. I told him it was a disgraceful thing that a man like him should beg in the street when the Government and many voluntary agencies were perfectly ready to help him. His answer was that all his grateful country did for him was to give him a pension of £2 a week, on which he could not possibly live, so what else was he to do? This was obviously the sort of thing he had been telling the Americans, and knowing their generous hearts I have no doubt he was making a very good thing out of it, posing as a victim of shabby treatment from an ungrateful country. After that I left him, saying that I would look into his case, for which he thanked me rather sarcastically. As I had already taken down particulars I sent them at once to the Minister of Pensions. He took up the case immediately. I need hardly say that this young man has not been seen again outside that American club, and I leave it to the Minister to tell the House the facts of the case. I


will only add that investigations have shown that this man had never seen service abroad, and was therefore not entitled to wear the Africa Star.
I have raised this matter because I want the public and members of the Forces of our Allies in this country to know that all street begging is unnecessary, and I want them to realise what is being done to help to refit our disabled men and women. The public conscience very rightly demands that the country should take on this responsibility towards its disabled, and the happy results achieved by the training are one of the really bright spots in this rather sombre world. I am sure the House will agree with me when I say that no one has been more sympathetic towards those who have suffered, than my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions.
I hope that his reply to-day will receive wide publicity. All forms of street begging ought to be made illegal. In this I include the ex-Servicemen's bands, who jingle their boxes in front of your face, with a wheedling smile, and the woman with a baby, very often hired for the occasion, who tries to sell you a bit of white heather, and all the rest. They are all impostors. The really needy and deserving are, more often than not, those who are determined to maintain their independence and too proud to ask for help. It is usually possible to reach them only through social workers and voluntary societies. If only charitably-minded people would send something to these societies, such as the Charity Organisation Society and the Greater London Fund for the Blind—and there are many others—and turn a deaf ear to street beggars, they would be doing good instead of harm.

4.12 p.m.

Sir Alfred Beit: I have on more than one occasion asked supplementary questions on those Questions put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss), who also takes an interest in this problem, and whom I am glad to see in his place. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tavistock (Major Studholme) said that it was quite unnecessary that there should be any beggars on the streets. I go further, and say that it is a disgrace to our towns and

to our country that there are any. As long ago as 1935 I wrote to the present Lord Chancellor, who was then Home Secretary, saying that I hoped that, in view of the forthcoming King George V Jubilee celebrations and of the influx of visitors that this would probably bring into London, he would, through the Metropolitan Police, keep an eye on the growth of these abuses, and protect Londoners and visitors alike from these people. I received a conciliatory reply, in which he said that the police knew all about it and would do what they could. I am a little surprised to see no representative of the Home Office on the Front Bench. I am sure that we shall have an interesting answer from the Minister of Pensions, and, of course, certain aspects of this problem come into his sphere, but it is very largely a police question, and we should hear something of the Home Office point of view. I hope that my right hon. Friend will have something to say on that.
The problem is clearly divisible into two sections. There is the one which has been more emphasised by my hon. and gallant Friend, relating to ex-Servicemen, whether genuine or spurious, and the other which is more a police matter, the problem of the old professional beggar. From the point of view of the public it does not make very much difference which class it is, but from the point of view of both classes of begger it is true, as my hon. and gallant Friend has said, that there is no need for them to beg. There are other sources: not only charitable sources—which are excellent bodies—but the resources of the State, which make it quite unnecessary for these people to pursue this profession. It is obvious that, in fact, the great majority of beggars find it more profitable to ply the trade they are now plying than to make application to the Assistance Board. It is heart-breaking in the case of younger people, such as we have heard described, that if only they would take advantage of the training which is available they could, in probably not too long a period, earn decent wages, probably much greater than they can get as beggars, however successful they may be in that trade. What I might call the old lag is probably a hopeless case—and I hope he is dying out—but it is very sad when you see, as I frequently see, quite young men taking up begging as a trade. In the last few


weeks I have been alarmed to notice an increase of this trade on the streets of London. I do not know whether it arises from discharges from the Army: it may arise from the closing of certain industries, and dislocation of that sort; but these people are there, and they prey very largely on the generosity of our Allies. I hope that we may have a statement from the Minister of Pensions that, from his angle, he will do what he can, by training and other methods, to prevent begging from becoming a profession, to be taken up by new young people, and that we may also have an assurance that the police will do what they can to prevent begging on the streets.

4.18 p.m.

Mr. G. Strauss: I was not aware that this question was going to be raised, but I am glad that the hon. and gallant Member for Tavistock (Captain Studholme) has done so. It is shameful that in our capital city there should be men, who are either ex-Servicemen or who pose as ex-Servicemen, standing at the street corners playing musical instruments, usually making horrible noises, begging the public to support them, and alleging that they have no money, and that the State has let them down. The effect is bad in many ways. It is bad for the beggars themselves, although they may be obtaining considerable sums of money. I understand that if a man knows the game well, he can make substantial weekly earnings by begging in the street. We do not want to encourage anybody to go into that trade.

Captain Duncan: They pay no Income Tax.

Mr. Strauss: One can be quite sure, as the hon. and gallant Member says, that the beggar does not make any Income Tax return. Secondly, this type of begging has a bad effect on visitors to this country. When any of us have travelled abroad in pre-war days, and have seen, in some foreign cities where there is great poverty, people begging at street corners, we have thought it a deplorable thing, which reflected on the public spirit of the country or the city where the people were carrying on that trade. Americans, who do not know our ways, our administrative machinery, and our social ser-

vices, think, seeing these people at street corners, that this must be a dreadful country to let its ex-Servicemen live in such poverty that they are forced to resort to this method of keeping their homes together and their wives and children alive. But it has a further bad effect on the British public, and particularly on the wives of men who are in the Army. I have heard it said by women many times, when these street mendicants have pushed their bags, sometimes aggressively, in front of passers-by, "Is this what is going to happen to our men when they come back? Is this what they are fighting for? Is it to be the same as after the last war?" It has a most harmful effect on morale.
Personally I am not satisfied that the pensions given to men who are wholly or partially disabled are satisfactory: I think they are far too low. But, however low they are, there is no excuse for this type of action on the part of alleged ex-Servicemen. There are many other things they could do. They could agitate for better pensions, through their Members of Parliament or other public representatives. At the moment, in London there is work for almost anybody who is not totally incapacitated—it may be part-time, not full-time, work. If they really wanted it, these people could find some employment which would bring them in a reasonable living. Of course, there are patches of unemployment, even in London at the moment, but a full-time job as a street mendicant is unnecessary for anybody. I believe that the vast majority of these street mendicants are bogus. I believe that, mostly, their claims on the generosity of the public are ill-founded, and I think that making such false claims on the public is a serious offence. I would like an investigation to be made, by the police, it may be, into the circumstances of all those going round with musical instruments, or with other methods of attracting public attention, to find out why they are doing it and what is their real history, and, if it is found that they are making false claims, some action should be taken against them.
The social services of this country have been improved during the war, but they are far from perfect yet. I would like to see pensions higher, but, however disappointed we may be with their standard, there can be no reason at all, nor excuse, why this begging should be allowed in


the streets of London, and I also would like to hear what the Minister of Pensions has to say on this matter; and whether the Home Office is proposing to take any steps to investigate the real claims of these individuals.
I do not know whether it is the practice to-day, but, after I raised this matter in the House some few months ago, I was shown an advertisement which appeared in a paper some time before the war in which an organisation was advertising for people to come along and play musical instruments in the street, on a commission basis. It was a regular business. I do not know what the detailed arrangements were, but somebody, sitting somewhere in an office, was, presumably, making or hoping to make quite a bit of money out of these people trudging in the streets and preying on the charity of the public. It is a disgrace to the City of London and no doubt it happens in other industrial cities, too. Between our pension schemes our social services and the police, we ought to find a way to stop it.

4.23 p.m.

Mr. Butcher: We are indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Tavistock (Major Studholme) for raising this matter, but there is one point which has not been mentioned, and that is that those who make this profession lucrative are, in the main, people who can least afford to distribute their money in that way. I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend, faced with a person wearing war medals, did not offer him 6d. or 1s., but something far more substantial. He offered an investigation of his case by the appropriate Department, and that is one advantage which persons in his position possess. The kindly and charitable woman could ill afford the 6d. or 1s. which could be far better spent on her own home or for her children. That does not alter the case of a genuine person, but this other class push themselves into a position where they can attract the most attention. They exaggerate their infirmity in every possible way, and, at a time like this, when our American Allies have come from places like North Africa, where begging is an absolute trade, it is terrible that they should see similar practices in our capital city, with all our social services, and be led to think that genuine need is not properly met by our people. I think it is

regrettable that the Home Office is not represented in the House to-night, but I am quite satisfied that my right hon. Friend will convey to the House the views of the Government, and I equally hope that it will not be shown to be a one-way traffic. I hope also that the Minister will let the Home Secretary know how the House and the country feel on this matter.

4.25 p.m.

Mr. R. C. Morrison: Speaking from personal experience, I can say that there are a number of men being discharged from the Army now with physical disabilities who come under the classification of epileptics. I have had three or four cases in my own constituency in the last week or two. They have no claim to pension, having been epileptics before entering the Army. They were accepted for Service, and, when it was found how they were handicapped, they were discharged. This type of person, so far as I know, has no real claim upon the Minister of Pensions, because he is in no way responsible for their epileptic fits.

Dr. Morgan: Surely it depends on the case.

Mr. Morrison: My correspondence with the Ministry has, generally, shown that it will not take responsibility if a man has been in the Army and has a pre-Army history of epileptic fits.

Dr. Morgan: What about aggravation?

Mr. Morrison: The point I am making is that these people are in an extremely difficult position, and I do not know any class in the community for whom it is so difficult to do anything. Hon. Members have said that there is no excuse for anybody begging, but that does not cover the epileptic. The employment exchange officer, who has to deal with problems of disabilities, tells them that he cannot put them into any place where there is any machinery. Even on farms there is so much mechanisation to-day that these officers will not send the men there. They are not allowed to have anything to do with the building trade, because it is not safe for them to go up and down. I do not know of anything, in fact, which an epileptic can be sent to do. There they are, young, strong, and, to all outward


appearances, healthy and able-bodied people, walking about, and it just does not seem that there is anything we can do about it. It seems very difficult that a man still under 30 years of age who is the unfortunate victim of this disease should be condemned to be isolated for the rest of his life. I am not blaming the Minister of Pensions, but this is a problem, and I have no doubt that the Minister himself has been up against it. I am not in any way detracting from anything said by the previous speakers about the undesirability of these people begging on the streets, but I do ask the Minister to consider whether he really has gone as far as he can in regard to these unfortunate people, turned out of Army because they are victims of epileptic fits.
My hon. Friend suggested that the police should have powers to investigate the circumstances of people begging to find out the real position. That, perhaps, would possibly bring some of these cases to light; but I have known people of the type I have been speaking about who, after a few weeks or months, go steadily downhill because nobody will employ them. No employer can employ a man liable to these fits, and they are left drifting about until it occurs to them that, if they stood with their caps in their hands at street corners, they would get the sympathy of the public. So they write on a piece of cardboard "Ex-Serviceman; no pension," and stand there, and the public do not know what the circumstances are. I hope the Minister will look into the special case of these epileptic men.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: I would like to add a word to what the hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) has said. I hope what he has said will help the House to realise that the subject is a very complicated and a very important one. We are all indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Tavistock (Major Studholme) for presenting the question in the way he has done. We are all agreed that we do not want the sympathy of the public to be exploited selfishly and unworthily by people who make a profession out of their begging, but clearly there are cases, like the one just mentioned, that call for very careful investiga-

hon. What is needed before further action is taken is something in the nature of a small inter-departmental inquiry or committee, in which the Home Office, the Ministry of Pensions, possibly the Ministry of Health and, it may be, some other Ministry, co-operated in investigating the problem. We do not want to see, above all, anything like what we saw after the last war. We all remember the hundreds of men—many of them honest, and some fraudulent, and no one could tell without investigation whether a case was genuine or not—going round selling soap, scent or stationery, and in some cases only making a pretence of selling it in order to get gifts largely from charitable women. It is discreditable to the country that that should be done and we are surely determined that it shall not happen again.
I am sure that the Minister and the Government will do their utmost to see that that is so, yet it is discreditable that our Allies and visitors from other countries should imagine, as they may well do from cases like the one we have had mentioned, that no provision is made for these men. Even under the best of systems there will be temporary periods in which the help which is necessary is not forthcoming to the man who is needy, but that does not excuse anyone from making a livelihood out of trading upon the sympathy of others. It is degrading to the man himself and, in the end, degrading to the giver, because it is not the best way to help, and it is also degrading to the country as a whole. I hope, therefore, that the Minister's Department, which, I am sure, is going to do its utmost to prevent anything like what occurred after the last war, will co-operate with other Departments to investigate the whole question in its wider aspects.
There is not only the ex-Serviceman but the blind man, and all kinds of unfortunate people who may be tempted to prey in this way upon our sympathy. I remember years ago seeing in one of these so-called bands two men, ostensibly sailors—they were in nautical uniform—who appeared to have one leg each, but you could see the other leg tucked up inside their trousers. I can remember a blind man reading a passage of Scripture at a seaside resort and as I stood by quietly I found that he was reading, apparently from Braille, the same passage over and over


again at suitable intervals when people had passed by. I do not know whether he even read it, or was just repeating it by heart, but it was clearly an unworthy attempt to trade on the sympathy of ordinary people. That sort of thing ought not to happen. It has very largely gone to-day because of the payment of blind persons' pensions. That man was doing this sort of thing when there was no national pension for the blind. I hope that the adequate and honourable treatment of our ex-Servicemen by the country will do away altogether with the necessity of men having to live in an unworthy way upon the sympathy and good will of others.

4.34 p.m.

Dr. Morgan: I did not want to intervene, as the Minister of Pensions knows that I disagree to a great extent with the medical aspects of his pensions policy. I do not want to raise issues too acutely here this afternoon, but I think that some of the remarks which were made about the poor beggar, whether he followed a profession or whether he was fraudulent or not, are unfair. This sort of man is a disabled man, disabled perhaps through epilepsy or some form of organic nervous disease, paralysis, or some other disease, or perhaps a physically disabled man. He has to live. Everything is against him. Society is against him. He has to provide for himself somehow or other. His attempt to get a little charitable contribution from the public now and again may appear unpleasant to the well-placed individual in society or to any Member who is lucky enough to be in this House, but to this man it is a matter of life and death. I have never yet met a professional beggar or a man who is supposed to be doing something against society, whether in the West End or outside, who, if he was taken aside and gently spoken to, would not say that he was very anxious that some scheme or organisation should be devised by which he could be assisted.

Sir A. Beit: He will always say that.

Dr. Morgan: I have a tendency myself, as a doctor seeing patients and people every day, to try to place credence upon statements patients make to me until, as a result of my medical or psychological knowledge, I prove them wrong. I do not start off by regarding a man as a

fraud trying to do me down. I treat him as an honest being and, if he does me down, I ask him not to try to do it again, as I can see through him. I deal with psychological and Ministry of Pensions cases every day, so that the hon. Member need not try to make a facetious remark concerning my experience when I am saying something that comes within my professional knowledge.

Sir A. Beit: There is a slight difference between people who come to see the hon. Member and those individuals whom he sees "off his own bat."

Dr. Morgan: Not a bit. They are both men who are abnormal or disabled. An epileptic man is not a normal man. He has the epileptic side and the intermediate side between the attacks of epilepsy, which is abnormal. He has a disability and cannot get a pension, and such a man must necessarily be given something even if it is public assistance.

Major Studholme: If people cannot get pensions they can apply for other assistance, and there are innumerable bodies ready to help them to get on to their feet again.

Dr. Morgan: That is not new to me. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is rather treating me as if I am an infant prodigy and do not know about these things. I know that there are voluntary organisations, and there is public assistance, and, I also know of the absolute hatred of people who have to submit to the cross-examination which is done formally by officials. I have seen this cross-examination and inquisition carried out by public officials, and I have seen it done by people who have a sympathetic attitude towards the patient or the individual, and there is an entirely different response.
I want to express my surprise at what was said by the hon. Member who has just spoken. I think he was a little hard on these poor unfortunate people. The Ministry of Pensions' medical policy with regard to such cases as epilepsy is, if a man has suffered from epilepsy before his service and has been accepted for service, to say that the disability is not aggravated by service or certainly not caused by service, but it may be considerably, aggravated by service. I know many epileptic men who have been accepted for service after casual medical examina-


tion who, while serving with me in the last war in the trenches, had serious attacks of epilepsy, and in many cases they did not get a pension because the condition was not considered to have been aggravated by war service. Also I saw the subterranean methods employed in the Department then. Undoubtedly they are better now, but I want to urge the Minister of Pensions to give special consideration to many of these cases with a pre-war history of disability caused by epilepsy or other nervous disease. Their condition is emotionally aggravated and disturbed and undermined by the nature of the service they undergo. I have seen men not far away from artillery fire trembling and having an epileptic attack.
When they come back they are told that they are old epileptics and they say, "But I have never had it as badly as this; I now have attacks every three weeks while before it was six weeks." It is true that they are given a certain amount of treatment, and with treatment the period between attacks can be lengthened, but the fact remains that the man's condition has been aggravated by his years of service. I know the good intentions of the Minister of Pensions, and I know that he cannot go against his professional medical advisers, but I know something of these advisers. I do not want to say anything at all against my own profession, and I am not saying that the Minister of Pensions has not a good heart and good intentions, but I know the difficulty in which he would be placed if he said to his professional advisers, "I cannot take your advice." It is a difficult position, but, at the same time there are certain diseases, whether pre-service or after-service, which are supposed to be caused generally but which can be aggravated by service, and I wish the Minister would look at it in this way.
Let us take epilepsy. One form is known as ideopathic epilepsy, because we do not know how it arises; there are paralytic symptoms in hysteria epilepsy—a mixture of hysteria with true epilepsy. I submit that the Minister might now and again consider these separate disabilities which his professional advisers ask him to treat as being something inherent in the person's make-up, to see whether he cannot put these men in a separate category and give them special consideration in order to do justice to them by admitting

that their disability has been considerably aggravated by service.

4.44 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: There is another angle to this. We all deplore seeing a beggar, whether professional, sham or real, on the streets, and we think that in this country there should be no need for that, but I am wondering if we shall consider that we have done a good job of work here to-day if we clear the streets of beggars knowing that there are places where they can go for assistance. The hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) mentioned the epileptic. I am not blaming the Minister, because it is the responsibility of this House if there are no adequate pensions, but we should recognise that there are three diseases for which there are no pensions unless we can find a contributory cause. There are no pensions for tuberculosis or for cancer unless there is a contributory cause, though I do think that we have done much better as far as tuberculosis is concerned. In regard to the epileptic I have in mind a case of a man who has done two and a half years in the Army. He was A.1 when he went in but has now been discharged. I have no doubt the Debate to-day will be reported to the Home Office and if, as a result of it, we take these men from the streets, the man I have in mind will have to beg for public assistance. I think it is a great reflection on this House that a man who is passed A.1 into the Army does two and a half years' service, and is then discharged because, as an epileptic, he is of no further use, should have to beg for public assistance. It is humiliating to us as a nation. The Minister may have a favourable reply to make to this; I hope he has. Let us try to get them from the streets by all means, but let us not drive them to beg for public assistance after serving in the Army and doing their duty.

4.48 p.m.

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): May I express my thanks to the hon. and gallant Member for Tavistock (Major Studholme) for having raised this question, because, at any rate so far as the ex-Serviceman beggar is concerned, it is one that has exercised my mind and caused me very grave thought for some time. However, this Debate has travelled over a very wide field, and has assumed quite a different aspect from


what I expected when I received notice from my hon. and gallant Friend that he was raising this point. Had I thought it would have travelled over such a wide field, I should have requested a representative from the Home Office to be present, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary would have seen that it was done. At the time, however, it appeared to me to be purely an ex-Serviceman's question. At any rate I shall convey to my right hon. Friend the sentiments that have been expressed here this afternoon, and also the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) to have some kind of inquiry into this matter, because I think it is highly desirable that an inquiry should be made.
Let me deal with one or two points that have been raised quite outside what I thought would be the range of the Debate, and then we can get on to the other matters. The real answer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) and the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) is this: What happened during and after the last war was entirely different from what is happening to-day, and what happened in the early days of this war was entirely different from what is happening to-day, because this House, in its wisdom and after some very keen debate, approved the White Paper proposals put forward by the Government, which altered the whole position. It was really a revolution in pensions' administration and law. It was decided that aggravation should not have to be "material" aggravation and where it was attributable, it should not be "directly" attributable. Those two words, which were regarded as obnoxious, were taken away, and that has had an enormous effect, because if a man can show that there has been any aggravation by service then a pension can be given. As far as tuberculosis cases are concerned, there are very few now which are not receiving pensions for aggravation, and a pension for aggravation is assessed in exactly the same way as if it were attributable, so it is a pension according to the man's state of disability. I do not say that it is a general rule to grant a pension for cancer, because it is so difficult to show that there has been any cause and effect by service, but even in cancer cases, where it has

been shown that because the man was, say, serving abroad he was not in a position to get the right medical attention, and so on, a pension has been given.
In regard to epilepsy, we consider the case in a favourable light if a man's condition has been aggravated by a recent accident while serving in the Forces. Even in the case of diseases which have been scheduled as non-attributable to service, we go into their whole history. We have the pre-Service history on our records, but we judge the case by what has happened to the man during his time of service, and in the light of the climatic conditions in which he has been serving, and so on. I can assure the House that the Parliamentary Secretary and I take a deep personal interest in the question of aggravation, and are trying to carry out, not only the letter of the law but its spirit.
I want to thank the hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss). He put some questions to me a few months ago about street musicians claiming to be ex-Servicemen. It may interest him to know what happened, because I promised to look into the matter. I had the assistance of the police and the men were interviewed. All but one said they were ex-Servicemen, and thus entitled to exhibit the sign, "ex-Servicemen's Band," but it was surprising how many had lost their papers and could produce nothing to show that they had been in the Services. One man had actually served, and we had a good deal of sympathy for him until we discovered that he was in full-time employment, and was only playing in the band during his lunch hour and after working hours. When interviewed he said, "What is there to stop me? I am an ex-Serviceman," which he was. He said, "I can make far more money at this, than I can at my war work."
I had a word with the police as to what could be done, and the answer was that under the law as it now stands nothing could be done. If that man had claimed to be an ex-Serviceman, and had not been an ex-Serviceman, something might have been done on the grounds of misrepresentation, but nothing could be done about his playing. So long as a man does not create a nuisance, or an obstruction, nothing can be done under


the law as it now stands. As regards hawking, if a man takes out a pedlar's licence, signed by a citizen, to say that he is a man of good character, he can go from door to door and sell what he likes. We remember how, after the last war, men with 1½d. worth of notepaper in an envelope on which was printed, "Patronise an ex-Service Man"—they were careful not to say they were disabled—charged 6d. and in some cases received 1s. for their notepaper, all because they claimed to be ex-Servicemen.
The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) asked me to look into the case of a man who was hawking from door to door. The man was interviewed and offered training but he said, "I am going back to my old job after the war. I was an house-to-house canvasser for Hoovers before the war but there are no new Hoovers to be obtained now." Believe me, that man received 750 per cent. profit for what he was selling to householders, who were paying his price because he said he was an ex-Serviceman. In this case he was, because he had served two days in the Army. That is the sort of thing we have to put up with.
I would like to give the House some idea of what we are trying to do to help these men. It is no part of the Government's policy to allow a situation in which disabled ex-Serviceman can play upon the feelings of the public in the streets. Whatever might be said about the bad old days, the present arrangements for pensions and resettlement are such that men with a war disability can either be restored to a state in which they can earn normal wages or otherwise be cared for by my Department, and not by the Public Assistance authority. The Government scheme for rehabilitation is designed to cover the whole period from injury until the disabled man is restored to useful life. While in hospital he receives special attention and the best treatment by the most up-to-date methods, not forgetting the psychological side of the whole business. When he is ready to come out of the hands of the doctors he is interviewed by a representative of the Ministry of Labour, who takes the case in hand with a view to resettlement.
Here, let me pay a tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour for what he has done in this matter. He

has gone to an enormous amount of trouble. He has specially trained men to deal with these cases, and conduct interviews. I can assure the House that men who are about to be discharged are dealt with in a most sympathetic way. If either my right hon. Friend or I receives a complaint about an interview, we investigate it at once because we know that the man who has been suffering and in hospital for a long time wants careful and sympathetic handling. It is wise to have, as interviewers, men with sympathy and whose heart is in their job, and I am glad to say that my right hon. Friend has found excellent men for this task. If a man is declared fit enough to go back to his old job we are pleased. If not, arrangements are made for him to be trained for some other suitable occupation. I want to emphasise that point because consultations take place with the doctor, the man himself and the Minister of Labour's officials to see what kind of job will suit the man.
I have a case in mind. A miner lost a leg and said he would like to be a clerk. They thought it was rather a big jump for a miner to become a clerk but it appeared that he had spent his time in improving himself and had gone to night classes, and it was suggested that he should be tested out. He is to-day employed in my own Department and is doing a jolly good job of work and he has made a first-class clerk. That is the result of a sympathetic talk at the interview. Again the House has passed the Disabled Persons Employment Act. I was delighted when it came on to the Statute Book because it will help me tremendously in dealing with my problem both now and after the war. The measure of the success of these arrangements is reflected in the fact that less than 2 per cent. of all the men who are interviewed have presented very great difficulty. We deal with them in a different way. I should have said that during training these men receive training money in addition to pension and, if married, family and children allowance.
The great thing is this. Where you find a man who does not respond in the first place, but is willing to undergo some special treatment, which may take some time, he is looked after and gets treatment allowance. If we cannot make him employable, we put him on what is called the unemployable list and he is given a


supplementation, a measure agreed to by the House, and we help him in many other ways and, if he can do odd jobs in the house, we do not take any notice of £1 a week if he earns it and we say, "Good luck to him," and he gets our extra money on top of that. So there is a chance for everyone. A count was taken last April. Something like 180,000 men had been discharged that we have had to deal with, and fewer than 3,000 were showing any difficulty at all. The scheme is working successfully, but we want it to be more successful and, if there are any points that hon. Members can suggest whereby we can improve it, I shall be only too willing to accept their advice and help, but there is one thing that we have to make clear. We must have co-operation from the men themselves, otherwise we are in a hopeless position. We are still a democracy and there is no compulsion about it. I have never requested the House to grant me power to compel, because it is not in accordance with our ideas of democracy, but we get a small number of cases where the individual will not co-operate, and, therefore, we are placed in a very difficult situation. Members who come across such cases will be doing a good service both to the men and to the country if they advise them to go along and see the officer at the employment exchange and co-operate with him in the matter of resettlement, If a man wants to be a street musician or a hawker I cannot compel him to undertake anything else.
I have the report of the case mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend and it is important that it should be placed on record. This man was imposing on our gallant Allies, the Americans. We know their wonderful generosity. Many of us have been abroad in peace time and I remember one city in Southern Europe where it seemed to me that 90 per cent. of the population were beggars. I want our American Allies to know that we are doing our best to look after these men if they will only co-operate. This man was wearing the North Africa Eighth Army Ribbon, and there is no question that he got considerable sums of money from American soldiers. I have made full inquiries and have found that he performed no foreign service and is, therefore, not entitled to wear the ribbon. His injuries were sustained in a motor cycle accident in this country, and he is pensioned at 100

per cent. rate. Far from his service being creditable, it was very bad. In his first period in the Army in 1937 he was absent without leave twice and deserted once. The Army got rid of him. He re-joined during the war period, no doubt without mentioning his past record. He deserted and was absent for 12 months from his unit and was then only brought back by the police. His disability was admittedly severe—he is certainly not malingering about that—but since his discharge in March, 1943, his treatment has been repeatedly interrupted by his own behaviour. Three times he has had to be dismissed from Ministry hospitals because he would not comply with the rules and would not do what the doctors and surgeons thought he ought to do. He was reported to be insolent, difficult and non-co-operative. Even so, further treatment would not have been denied him, in fact it is still available, but he has not kept in touch with the local officers of the Ministry. Here is one of my difficulties which often arises, and hon. Members wonder why these things come about. He has changed his address frequently without giving notice to the Department and we have lost sight of him, though we try to follow cases up to see if they will change their minds when they have refused to undergo training. It made things very difficult until he wanted a new pension book, and then he let us know. If he is prepared to come forward and undergo the proper rehabilitation treatment and the training we will see that he is put into a position to get a job.
The Government visualised, in putting this scheme into operation, that we should first have this expert treatment, hoping medical improvement possible, and we offer it. Then there is a course of training according to the nature of the disablement, and finally a job, and we see to that. But this man said he did not want to learn any other trade. He was an engineer, and we could do with him and use him if he was sufficiently skilled but, if he will not co-operate, what can I do more than I have done? Do not let it go abroad that this is a general thing among ex-Servicemen. It is nothing of the kind. There is only a small percentage, but that small percentage is creating a very bad impression here and abroad, and we want, if possible, to deal with it.
We should bear in mind the comprehensive provisions which we have for dealing with the ex-Service and disabled man. There is not merely the pension. I have said on many occasions that money compensation is not enough for these men. They want something more; they want sympathetic help, and they want to be helped to help themselves. Nothing is better for a man than that he should feel, not an inferiority complex, but that he is equal to his fellow citizens. In addition to his pension, every man who suffers from disability gets his rights under National Health Insurance, and if he does not come under health insurance we make it up. If a man is unemployed he gets the benefits of unemployment in-

surance, plus his pension. Bearing these things in mind, what we as Members of the House ought to do is to see that these men get the best medical attention and training and are given the best opportunities for doing useful work. As far as we can, we should see to it that no ex-Serviceman need be on the streets begging. If he does go on the streets he will have to be dealt with in a different way from any way by which I can deal with him, and that is by an alteration of the law so that none of these people can be on the streets begging.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven Minutes after Five o'Clock.